Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1890 — FARM AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

FARM AND GARDEN.

If you have a straw-cutter or feedcutter of any kind take the first rainy day and cut up a good supply of straw for bedding. With cut straw you canmake an more comfortable than with long straw, as an evener distribution of it can be had upon the floor of the stall. It makes a better absorbent for the same reason, and the manure and urine become more thoroughly incorporated with it; and be sure and have a liberal supply of bedding. Nothingismuch more conducive to poor condition of live stock in the winter than compelling them to lie upon cold, wet floors. With liberal bedding they can be the more easily kept warm and clean—two factors that of the first importance for their general welfare.

Statistics show conclusively that agriculture has not kept pace with manufactures in thia country during the last quarter of a century. Farm products increased in value from 1865 to 1885 from $47,000,000 to $72,000,000, or about 89 per cent. Manufactured products during the first ten years of this period increased 98 per cent. , or from $273,800,000 to $588,860,000, and during the whole twenty years to 1885 they increased to $674.000,000, or about 150 per cent. The gain in manufactures has been three times as rapid as in agriculture. In view of this fact it would seem as if the time had now arrived for agriculture to feel the effect of an increased demand for its products which this gain in the consuming classes should have brought about

On the trial grounds of the experiment station at Geneva, N. Y., were J planted for testing two rows of each I variety of strawberries, one grown in the stool system, the other allowed to mat to the width of two feet, twelve plants in each row, the rows three feet apart. In past years the largest individual fruits have been obtained from the plants in the stool rows and the largest yield of marketable fruit from the matted row. This year the matted rows gave both the largest yield and the largest berries, and, in addition, bloomed and fruited from three to five days in advance of the stool rows. —This is a result that would not have been generally expected, but, if borne out by future work, will go far to prove that the easiest way is the best in strawberry culture. It is a fact worth considering that the railways received more for carrying the Georgia melon crop to market than the growers received for the product. The growers received on an average of S6O a carload, or a total of $330,000, while the railways charged an average of S7O a carload for transportation, or a total of $385,000. Nevertheless, the growers did better than in former years, but it forcibly suggests that they should’ consider the bulk and cost of transportation in determining what crops to grow. It is the policy and interest of the railways to encourage the growing of bulky products. For instance, it costs as much to freight the product of two acres of melons as of 100 acres of cotton. Consider this in deciding whether you will grow wheat or corn, fruit or hay. The American Garden is an earnest advocate for the development and improve meat of our native fruits. It thinks that the progress thus far made is only a beginniug of what the future will show. The improvement of our native grapes, gooseberries, raspberries, etc., has been brought about by the partial or total failure of foreign varieties, and our increasing population, the failures in fruit raising, owing to the peculiar climate and soil of the newer States, and the destruction of the forests in older regions of the country will lead to the cultivation and improvement of other native American fruits. Already there, is a marked increase in the attention given to our native plums. Our cultivated raspberries and blackberries have been developed from the wild state' almost within a generation. Our wild huckleberries are almost gone and soon some of those will be brought under cultivation. The experiment stations might well take this matter up and see what can be done with our cherries, crabapples, Juneberries, | pawpaws, persimmons, etc. The bounty which is to be paid upon ' our domestic sugar production should ' stimulate the maple sugar manufac- ■ tures to renewed efforts and encourage those also who are experimenting in the production of beet sugar. After Jan. I,lß6l,every pound of sugar made here, whether mad from cane, beet roots or the sap of the maple tree, is entitle to a bounty of from 1| to 2 cents a pound. In the south the bounty will probably have the effect of brining into cultivation new sugar lands, provided the planters can be made to feel that the bounty is a per manent substitute fox* the tariff. Certainly, with all our recourses, it is to be hoped that the way will be opened by which we ean afford to provide our own sweets. Texas and Arkansas both claim large areas of undeveloped cane lands, the Dakotas and California can grow the sugar beet, New York! Ohio and Vermont the sugar maple* In the writer’s old home in New York (Delaware county) the production has been so great that in a single year this bounty would bring to the farmers nearly $20,000.

JAMES K. REEVE.

NOTES. Crude carbolic acid is better to use as a wash in soapsuds for trees than anything else. Kerosene hot be used on tress at all. ——-—— Several onion growers are bearing testimony to the value of sod ground for this vegetable. This is somewhat in opposition to previous ideas in onion culture. It ought to be a rule in "doctoring” cows that “when you don't know what

to do don’t de anything;” but the con-* trary is followed, and many dead or injured cows are the result. When we give the cows poor feed, and a scanty supply at that, we are inviting a curious specibs of microbe to assist us in our dairying. Rye may be used for late pasture. ■lt will do the rye no harm to allow it to be grazed, but stock should not be turned on when the grpung is wet. Tbe sweepings from the hay loft, which contain the seeds of plover and grasses, make excellent food for the early chicks that may be hatched, and, should be sifted and saved for that purpose. Store your onions on the floor, where they can be spread out to dry. They should not be disturbed after they are put away for winter. The frost's will do them butlittle damage if they do ffffi thaw too rabidly. Look well at the trunks of trees below the ground, near the roots. If any signs of damage from insects appear, or disease shows symptoms, use lime plentifully around the trees and wash the trunks with strong soapsuds. To rid a poultry house of red lice fumigate it with burning sulphur, in which has been placed a pound of old tobacco leaves, or a piece of common rosin twice as big as an egg, the house meantime being closed perfectly tight. Insects can not live in this kind of atmosphere: