Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1887 — RURAL TOPICS. [ARTICLE]

RURAL TOPICS.

Some Practical Suggestions for '' Our Agricultural Readers. - Information of Ynlne to the Farmer, Stock-Breeder, Housewife* and Kitchen-Maid. 1 £ ! AGRICULTURE. : -rifl , • .. Combinin'! Dairying and Gardening Some dairymen who 6ell milk in cities do a good business by combining with it some market gardening. The two commodities are carried from house to house, and with some experience the driver can load up so as |to dispose of both nearly at the same time. The cows alko make a large supply of manure for the garden. Fodder 1 ables. In North Germany a feeding table is generally used instead of a crib in cow stalls. This feeding table usually runs down the center of the cow- house, and is built of brick and covered with a coating' of cement. Mangers and racks are entirely dispensed with, and the fodder can be given to a double row of animals at the same time. 'jjhey stand on either side of the table, which is of such breadth that each beast can only reach as far as its middle. The edge of the table is slightly raised, and in front of each cow is a twofeet high boarding pierced with a triangular aperture, which permits the animal to feed. In order to let the animal drink, water is allowed to flow in the channels along each side of the table from a cementcovered reservoir at one end, while the superfluous water drains off at the other end. The fodder table is much lower than the crib, a decided advantage. From the use of racks the horns of young animals grow back. It is easier to clean the fodder table than the rack, and by the former device much scattering and waste of fodder is avoided. Half Three Acres and a Cow, A correspondent writing to St. James’ Gazelle from Cheshire sends the following account of wbat may be done with half three acres ana a cow: In the near vicinity of a thriving manufacturing town in Scotland, with a population of about eighteen thousand inhabitants, many of whom have small gardens, there lives a worthy couple and their six children, who have not bo much land as “three acres,” but only about the one-half of this quantity and no more. They have got the “cow,” however, and a pig or two, and they raise a good deal of market produce, such as strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, lettuce, cabbage, etc., in their season. Husband and wife, and the children as they grow up, work upon that bit of ground industriously; they are never idle; they till the land, manure it, plant it, and keep it in perfection. Not a foot of it is incumbered with weeds or is allowed to lie waste. From early morning till evening some or other are bravely engaged on it at the proper season, and in consequence the soil is lovingly grateful to them for it, and repays them well, as it always generously does, for the care and attention bestowed upon it. It may be mentioned that the srqall but well-built dwelling-house which stands on the comer of the land and also the cowhouse, etc., have beenr bought and paid for out of their savings, and now all that they have to pay for their snug little place is an annual ground rent of £4 or so. Of cqurse, had there been a score or two of such families as this living near this small town vegetables and fruits would have been cheapened; but there is ample room in the outskirts of all our large cities and towns for thousands of families to make a comfortable apd pleasant living if they have the mind and determination to try it. Meantime, we must go now to Franoe and Belgium for much of the vegetables we use, and for the aged and inferior eggs pow produced at our breakfast tables,4

STOCK-BREEDING. The Heifer’s First Calf. Unless especially valuable for breeding from its pedigree, the first calf of a heifer had better be sold to the butcher. It will not have the vigor and hardiness of progeny from the same animal when mature. It will also.'generally be smaller. But with pedigreed stock or that valuable from other causes, this rule will not apply. Fattening Hogs. It does not pay to grow hogs, keeping them with half enough to eat until a year or more old and then fattening them. The feed from the first should be liberal, and while growing the difference between that and fattening must be made by variety rather than by quantity. Give a growing Eig all it will eat of something that is ulky rather than nutritious. A clover field, or a run in the orchard, does this, and herein is the great advantage of these methods of feeding. With the milk from a few cows, and a little meal, pigs will-be nearly fat enough to kill at any time, and a few weeks on corn will fit them for the butcher. ihe Angora Goat. Commissioner Colman, of the United States Department of Agriculture, in answer to S. Simmons, Esq., of St. Louis, in regard to Angora goats, writes: “In reply to your inquiries relative to the Angola goat, you are informed that the species has been successfully acclimated in many of the States, a cool, dry, mountainous region being well adapted to them. They were first introduced into South Carolina in 1848, into Georgia in 1854, and subsequently spread to the west and southwest. At present the two largest ranches in the country are in Texas—one, that of Joseph P. Devine, near San Antonio, in . Bexar County; the other that of Arnold Brothers, in Nueces Canyon, Uvaide County—and they have from 25,000 to fi,ooo head each. There is little doubt that the mohair industry will, in the near future, be li very important one in our mountainous districts. The mistake generally made has been to utilize the breed only for crossing with our native stock. This has proven to be a bad method, as the valuable peculiarities of the mohair deteriorate with the smallest admixture of other blood; and repeated trialp have proved that we must limit ourselves to ■preserving the species mils entire purity. There is no great difficulty in raising the pure breed where the nature of the ground and the climate conditions are suitable. Its native country extends from the Black Sea on the north to the plains of Mesopotamia on the south, the Caspian Sea on the east and Mediterranean on the west. But its -peculiar domain is.between thirty-nine degrees twenty minutesand forty degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, and between thirty-three degrees twenty minutes and thirty-five degrees east longitude, where it is prized as an eating, milking, cheese and butter-making and clothes-making animal. The flesh is finely developed, and considered wholesome and nutritious; but in this country the chief value will be in its hair, which, when from pure blood, is of dazzling white, curled in locks eight or nine inches long, and as fine as silk. In too moist an atmosphere they are subject to maladies, but are not afFeoted in a dry’one. Except immediately after shearing, they are as tolerant of both heat and cold as our native goats. .. .

The pure breed could probably be obtained from the Texas ranches, or you could import them through the New York houses. At Angpra they can be bought at from $4 to $6 each, but in this country they are much dearer, and saloß have been reported as high as SIOO or over SI,OOO each for exceptionally fine animals. While I fotjl that this industry is destined to be an, important one, I should net advise you to, invest in it, without first thoroughly informing yourself as to its details, and what difficulties you would be. likely to encounter, which you could do by conference with the owners of the ranches in Texas. FLORICULTURE. Tiote’s. “How is it that my violets only give me an occasional bloom or two; they were put into a frame in October?” In replying to this question I usually ask another, viz.: “Were your plants bristling with buds when they were put into your frame?” If not, the frame will have no effect as regards making them produce blooms. The protection of the frame assists the development of the buds with which the'plants should be furnished previous to their being transferred to their winter quarters. It is essential that young plants should be grown every year, and therefore runners must be taken about the middle of April, when there is usually plenty to be had with a root or two attached to them. Care should, however, be taken to have runners and not divisions of the old plant. The runners should be pricked out about a foot apart in a partially-shaded border which has been well worked, and dressed with manure from an old hot-bed, in which a considerable quantity of leaves has been used. They will be found to quickly establish themselves, and will in a short time grow into fine plants. All that is required through the summer is to keep them clean by giving them a frequent hoeing, and to go through them two or three times and cut off new runners, which they will throw out rather freely. If these attentions are annually given them, the result will be a prodigious harvest of blooms for eight months of the year.— Vick’s Magazine. A New method with Pansies. Last season I tried growing pansies in a new manner, at least, it was new to me. We sowed a large quantity of seed quite early, but the drought came on before the plants had attained much size, and all through the summer they jnst managed to live, and that was all; indeed, they would have died long before fall came with the long-deferred rains, had we not watered them daily. But the water we applied did not seem to produce the same results that follow the application of moisture in a natural manner, and the young plants stood still. But when it began to get cooler, and an occasional rain came, the plants began to grow. I wondered what effect pinching back would have on them. They were inclined to make a growth of one or two branches only when they got started. So I went to work and pinched off the ends of all of them. This induced other branches to start, and these were pinched off when they had grown a few inches. In this way I had some compact little plants rather than thp usual slender, sprawly specimens. I think this treatment would be of benefit to the pansy under any circumstances, and I shall practice the pinching system the coming season. It is a characteristic of this most charming flower to send out but few branches, and these are so slender, as a general thing, that they are easily broken. If the plant will adapt itself to pinching, as I think it will, during its summer growth, I do not see why we may not have bushy, compact plants, with mpre flowers from them than we usually get from plants allowed to grow to suit themselves, because there will be more branches to produce flowers on.— Vick’s Magazine.

BEE CULTURE, Fruit-Fating bit Bees. i_ And now an alleged “oldest and most experienced beekeeper” of California claims, and is reported to have shown conclusively, that bees “have the power of cutting through substances vastly more resistant than the skins of grapeß, peaches, etc., and that only those ignorant of natural history can maintain to the contrary.” The fact that bees cut through even the skin of the grape is not proved; but, if so, it is generally accepted that bees do not attack sound fruit, but only those picked by birds or burst from engorgement. Nevertheless the advice to beekeepers to raise flowers on which the bees may feed is good. There is no reason why a man owning not a rod of land should keep a hundred swarm of bees to forage on his neighbors and sting frolicsome children.— Chicago Tribune. How to Arrange an Apiary. ' J. W. Margrove, of Hiawatha, Kan., in the American Bee Journal, tells how he arranged his apiary, as follows: “I would like to describe the arrangement of my apiary last season. It may be old, but it was new to me. I laid it out in the form of a hollow square, placing the hives five feet apart from center to center, all facing outw-ajd; then I could do my work in the apiary and be all the time behind the hive, and not in front of the next row. I never like to insult a colony of bees by standing in its doorway, for two reasons: First, I think it very impolite to do so, and second, the bees often have a very sharp way of resisting such impertinence. If I had more hives than would fill the entire square I would form a second square inside of the first, only reversing the entrances, having them face inward. Then I could pass around the entire apiary and be in the rear of each hive. I paid particular attention during the season, and could detecno difference in those facing north from those facing to the east, or, indeed, any of the others; all did about equally well where the internal conditions were the same. I think that the plan is a good one, especially where one is limited for room, as a great many colonies could be kept in a very small space.”

DAIRYING. The Cost of Hi tic. If farming were done more on a commercial basis fewer mistakes and failures would result. If a majority of farmers calculated closely the cost of keeping milch cows, including the labor, they would find that a large proportion of their herd does not pay expenses, and that what profit is made is on a few animals. More in the dairy than any other branch of farming profits would be greater if the business done were smaller. Keeping Twelve Cows on Ten Acres. One of the most successful dairymen iu this country, Mr. Hiram Smith, of Sheboygan Falls. Wis., keeps 100 cows on 200 acres of land, feeding them from the products of the farm. He purchases extra food, but it is paid for by feeding the skim milk to pigs and selling the poTk. He soils his cows as well as pasturing them, and keeps them in warm quarters, thns inckicing the flow of milk for eleven months from each cow. Aiming, as he does, to keep the largest number on the smallest space with profit, he gives the Prairie Farmer his method by which ten acres may be made to support twelve cows. If the land is in good cultivation he suggests that the ten acres be divided into five two-acre lots, one of which should be fenced off for permanent buildings, yards.

and pasture. Tyro acres should be devoted, one-half to German millet (seed with clover) and half to winter rye, for early soiling from the 25th of May until the 20th of J une. When the crop of rye is removed sow to millet, and seed down to clover with a little timothy seed added. These two acres to remain in meadow and for soiling two fears, so that in ihe second year, the land will become, filled with clover roots, which makei an excellent fertilizer for the large sweet fodder-corn, two acres of which will produce, if the work is properly done, sixty-two tons of green feed. The green feed should be run through a feedcutter, whether green or dry. The two acres of corn, with four acres of meadow cut twice, and two acres of millet and rye, will be sufficient fodder for twelve Jersey grade cows. This alludes to .the green food they will eat, with probably a surplus for winter. As green food alone is not a sufficient ration, there should be given each cow daily four pounds of wheat middlings in summer, and four pounds of bran with four pounds of cornmeai in winter, provided one-half the cows come into milk from October to January, the coming in of the other half being distributed through the balance of the year. Though winter is the season when prices are unusually highest, food under the soiling system is, of course, more available in summer. Regarding the manure, it should be taken daily from the stables, in the winter season, and spread upon the land designed for corn, while during the summer it should be composted and spread upon the meadows after the second cutting. In arranging the ten acres two acres are allowed for buildings and permanent pasture, two for German millet and winter rye, two for clover meadow (which should be two crops in one vear), two for fodder com, and the remaining two, also, to be in clover meadow. The estimated weight of the green stuff grown will provide 58 pounds of green food daily to each cow for 365 days, but it will be necessary to purchase 13J tons of ground grain, which would require ten acres for its production. It will be noticed that although the method arranged for growing enough green food on ten acres for twelve cows may be put in practice, yet the fact that the grain must be purchased compels the use of twenty acres for twelve cows. But admitting such to be a fact, it is not every farmer who makes twenty acres support twelve cows. The writer of the above, by keeping 100 cows on the product of 200 acres, has solved the problem of supporting a cow on two acres, which has often been discussed, and the plan recommended, coming from one who has been so successful, is worthy of consideration.

HOUSEKEEPING. How to Get Rid of the Scents of the Kitchen. Last Sunday I chanced to go to church in a country village. Although it was a well-to-do village, and the church was a large building, the odors made one fully aware that the halcyon days of fresh air and out-of-door sweetness were gone, and in their place had come the ciisp, delicious air of late fall, which, alas, means to so many people only the shutting and barring of every crack and crevice pf their houses. In consequence, it is not necessary when they go abroad to say to their neighbors and friends, “We had buckwheat cakes for breakfast,” or “Yesterday I fried a batch of doughnuts,” for the shut-up house had enabled them to impart in other ways this bit of neighborly Sunday morning gossip. “But,” says that dear, comfortable, motherly-looking lady, whose delicate doughnuts and crullers and fried hasty pudding have been for years the envy of all her friends, “our house is so small the smell of the frying-pan will go all over it. I shut the clothes-press door tight, but there are cracks around it and it is so near the kitchen!” Says some one else: “We sleep in the chamber over the kitchen in the winter, because the pipe of the cook stove goes through it, and the smell of the frying goes Up through the pipe hole and it will stay in the woolens. Some way it is never out all the winter, except when I have time ,to hang the things out, and that is not often.” These were the first shut-in days, and as they were not quite wonted to the odors that clung about their heavy woolen garments, the seasons went on around the little circle gathered about the register after service was over, until they came to a quiet, timid little woman, to whom the first speaker said: “You can’t have made fried cakes yesterday, for there are no traces of them about you.” “Indeed I did, and a big crock full, for the boys ure hungry in these days, and like to take them to school with their dinner, and I did not mean to have to make any more until Saturday comes again.” An astonished little “How do you keep the odor out?” rippled around the circle; to which she replied, “My kitchen, as you all know, is very small, like my house, and* I could not open a window without it blowing on to both me and the stove, and they would not come down from the top, so the next time I wefit to town I bought at the hardware store four barrel springs. They cost only a few cents each. The first rainy day when John was at home I got him to put them in, making three sets of holes so I could lower the windows little or much, as might be necessary. It took but a little while, and now my windows come down from the top very easily, and as they are opposite I can always have a good draught which carries a great deal out of doors, for if you have ever noticed the smoke mostly goes up to the ceiling. As the hair is worse than woolbn to hold odors, I always wear a cambric sweeping-cap when I am working anything that has an odor. I keep one hanging near the stove to be convenient, and as they are make of white cambric? with a bit of lace sewn on the edge and starched very stiff, they are very tidy looking. Then, as to floors; before I begin I run upstairs and open the window in the room over the kitchen, shutting the door very tight. Then I shut all the doors of the kitcuen very tight, too. “The instant that the last cake or bit of pudding is done, I set the kettle or fryingpan immediately out of doors to cool, and throw open all the doors and a window. In two or three minutes 4he odors are out, and the fresh air with which the room is filled will warm very quickly. Breathing fresh air myself, I can tell if the smell has gone anywhere else, and if so I open a window or door. Going upstairs, if I find any odor in the room over the kitchen I know it must have penetrated the closet, and so open the door, leaving the window open in the room for a half-hour longer, but take good care to close the door from the room into the hall as I come out. Coming down I close the windows again, and no one would know what I had been cooking. In frying potatoes I am always careful to drop the windows in the kitchen from the top. as there are few odors more disagreeable than that of stale fried potatoes. ” —Philadelphia Press.

COOKING. f eallop'd Votaloen. Cut up cold boiled potatoes until you bare about a quart. Put in a pan a generous cup of milk, one teaspoonful of flour, and one tablespoonful of butter. Set on the stove - and let it thicken, then put a layer of potatoes in a pudding dish, season with salt and pepper, and pour on a little of the gravy. Continue until all is used. Cover the lop with rolled cracker crumbs and bits of butter. Bake twonty minutes.