Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1891 — FARMS AND FARMERS. [ARTICLE]

FARMS AND FARMERS.

Cblflfcgo Inter Ocean. THE WHEAT MARKET. The action of the Russian Government in forbidding the exportation of rye and wheat, owing to a serious shortage of cereals in that country,, has put the wheat market in a very excellent condition. Of course considerable of this is due to the speculative feeling, the desire to play at chance with a partially unknown future. But it is quite evident that Russia will play a very unimportant part in the grain supply of Europe. Consequently the American farmer is a much more important man than he was l year ago. All sorts of gratuitous advice is being showered upon him irom alliances and wheat kings. Circulars, by the million are oqfcr ostensibly under alliance auspices, advising him to hold his wheat so: a big rise. All this advice presupposes tnat h’e must act according to other men’s ideas; that he must turn speculator with his own property, and to the extent of his means go into the wheat with the bulls and bears. Also that he must put off the payment of his debts, which, unfortunately, are never speculative, but always a dead reality. It is to be hoped he will sell when a good, fair paying price is reached and with the money obtained pay his obligations. It is interest money more than anything else that is eat-’-g the life out of the farmer. - / A PROMISING WHEAT. A very promising variety of winter wheat has been brought out in Canada, called tho Canadian Velvet Chaff. Concerning it theFarmers’ Advocate §ays: “This is indeed a most promising wheat; in fact it is now past |the experimental stage; it does extremely well in all sections of Ontario; is almost as hardy as rye. The straw is very stiff and bright, the head long and square, free from rust, ripens early, and is very productive, -tißeriag—freelyr—On popd—sotrtfe 'should not be sown thicker than one and a quarter bushels per acre. Taking the eastern part of the province, it is the best fall wheat now in cultivation, and calculating the area Qf this wheat harvested it will decidedly yield several bushels to the acre more than any other sort now grown in Ontario. It is each year improving in quality and yield.

DAIRY NOTES. The veteran Ohio dairyman, C. W. Horr, sums up the requirements of a dairy cow as follows: 1. A fair yearly production of milk and butter. 2. Mihimum amount of feed required to pfoduce a given amount of milk. 3. Certainty of transmission of milking qualities to offspring. 4. Value for beef. 5. Gentleness of disposition and longevity. Having these qualities in a foundation herd, he takes it for granted that the owner will thereafter raise his own cows. It is well, . when any community has decided to start a creamery, to first ascertain how many cows can be relied on for milk within the proper radius, aijd in so ascertaining the number of cows make it a certainty that the owners will become patrons. A mere promise to “tike their milk to the factory” is not as reliable data on which to base safe calculations as though the owners become stockholders, if intended to make of it a stock company. If not a stock company, then require a written guarantee that they will furnish milk from a Specified number of cows in case a creamery be started, pre-supposing that the new creamery will pay as much for milk as at other creameries in the same section of country.

Virginia C. Meridith, of Cambridge City, Ind., is an accomplished dairy woman, and she has sound ideas about the training and.education of a heifer. She says: . . ... Experience has established the fact that the milking habit must be induced in the heifer with her first calf. That old-time practice of “breaking the heifer” has become obsolete in these days when comfort is recognized as an essential part of the cow’s treatment, and the calf is from birth the object of attention and solicitude. One is sometimes tempted to “dry up” the heifer, but the persistent milking habit is so very valuable that, it should be established at this time. With regard to the medical care of the new cow she gives the following advice, which is all good: Medication is to be avoided rather than encouraged. However a few simple remedies fchould be at hand. Carbolic acid diluted with water in ,he proportion of one to sixty, is extremely beneficial for cleansing upon wounds and is always to be preferred to any oily application. An ointment made’ by dissolving half an ounce of gum camphor in hot latfd and afterward adding a scant tablespoonful of laudanum is most efficacious in reducing the inflammation and soreness of the swollen udder, often so troublesome after calving. Tincture of aconite, in twenty to forty drop doses, until 150 drops have been given—beginning with tbittyminute intervals and oonstantly lengthening the period, is almost a specific for milk rever.

scaotsu fallowing. Mr. Agnus McKay, of the experimental farm at Indian Head, Manitoba, urgently recommends summer fallowing the rich prairie lands of the Northwest for wneat.. The reasons he gives for this practice are blear and convincing, and ore as follows: We fallow far one reason alone, and that is that by deing so sufficient moisture is stored up and retained, in the soil to overcofcealaw dry days

or weeks the following year when our crop 3 are growing. Experience has shown that in the Northwest where the rainfall is very uncertain, something more has to be done to withstand a hot July than to turn over stubble in the fall and sow next spring. No matter how well the work is done or how carefully the seed is sown, one or two hot days in July may and often do entirely ruin the crop. I need not point to* 1889 or other years preceding this as evidence. Neither will any amount of work in spring plowing avail if the season is dry. While spring plowing is more sure than fall plowing, yet a settler is risking his whole year’s work on an uncertainty if he follows and relies either of the two days just mentioned. Now it is equally certain that if land is worked the preceding year in a certain time of the year and worked properly, when the crop requires more moisture than it can get from the qlouds it either has it stpred up or secures it from the atmosphere. HOW TO KILL WEEDS. Robert Maxwell, of Arkland, Scotland, says the Northwest Farmer, wrote 184 years ago, the following praptieal advice on killing weeds : the infield the more you dung it the more weeds will grow. It never will be otherwise till the seeds or the greater part of them are killed, for they grow the more readily and vigorously the more the Sund dunged. We know no ter way of getting quit of them than by encouraging their seeds to vegetate and then destroy them, as they will in part dung the ground. Sure killing of the weeds is the chief thing aiuqed at. Harrow thoroughly immediately after every plowing. The fine mold will excite their small seeds to grow; the smaller it is made the better it will aitswer the purpose. Early in the spring harrow fine to encourage more seeds of weeds to grow.” FACTS IN FEEDING, ' - V A writer for the Breeders’ Gazette, J. G. ImjjOden, of Dedatur, Ill:, gives his experience in fattening thirtythree shorthorns, fifteen HerSfords, two Polled Angus and one HolsteinFriesian. They were- fed just five months, and twelve of the steers made an average gain. of 350 pounds each. Their average - weight was 1,309 pounds, and> they sold at $6.15. Fifteen 2-year-olds averaged 1,400 pounds and sold for $5.90 per 100 pounds. The remainder were filled at home, and averaged 1,200 pounds each, leaking choice beef. He says the fifty-one steers were fed about eighteen bushels of corn at one feed at 9 or 10> O’clock each morning. The troughs- were made clean before each feeding, and there would be from one to two bushels of corn taken from the troughs each morning for the hogs. He had sev-enty-one light hogs with the cattle. The last hundred days be fed about three pounds of oil cake per steer each day.

Mr. Imboden says in conclusion: “I will say that my experience with two years’ feeding has been that it costs two weeks’ full feeding to dehorn a steer, but for close feeding it pays. That well-bred yearling steers in f ull flesh suit me beSt to put in the feed lot, and wheq they are ripe in the spring they are quick sellers. The Hereford steers make \kis gain in the feed lot than shortlmrns of equal breeding, but would get ripe sooner than the shorthorns or angus. That one Holsteiri-Eriesian in the feed lot at a time Is enough. That show cattle can be made without feeding three or four times a day, and it does not take an expert to do it. DESTROYING CHINCH BUGS ON CORN. Profesor Henry, of the Wisconsin Experinfent Station, Iks lately sent out a circular gmhg directions for preparing a kerosene emulsion for destroying chinch bugs on corn. The emulsion is one whi'oh has been used with great success by Dr. Fred E. Russell, of Poynitte, Wis., and is prepared as follows: Slice half a pound of common bar soap; put it in a kettle with one gallon of soft water and boil until dissolved; put two gallons of kerosene in a churn or stone jar, and add to it the boiling hot soap solution; churn from twenty to thirty minutes, when the whole tning will appear creamy, If properly made no oil will separate out when a few drops of the emulsion placed on a piece of glass. To each gallon of the emulsion add eight' gallons of water and stir. Apply with a springling pot. Every farmer should learn to make this emulsion, as it is a most useful insectcide. It is especially valuable for killing lice on cattle and hogs. I Paris green will not kill chinch bugs. If the bugs are not yet in the corn plow a deep furrow along the side of i the field they will enter and throw into it stalks of green corn. When the bugs have accumulated on the corn sprinkle with the emulsion. Put in fresh stalk? and sprinkle when the bugs accumulate. If they break over the barrier, as they probably will, run a new furrow a few rows back in the corn and repeat. Where they have attacked stalks of standing corn destroy by sprinkling. If the remedy is tried it should be, used persistently. To kill one lot of bugs and then stop will do little .or no good. When the bugs threaten to destroy as much as live or ten acres it will pay for one or two men to devote their whole time to the warfape. Only a part of eaeh day, however, will be needed. Some corn will be lost at best, bat the most of the field should be saved. Any one trying the remedy is requested to send the results of his experience to this station. A FXW DON TB- - breed that old broken-down

mare. It wotf’t p&pf but will bd ■ injury to the breeding industry. Don’t expect an old WDfW-out hor - to do as much work as a young as sound animal Don’t use heavy harness. Ligl , ones properly made of good leaf hi F are stronger and last longer, whi bfmg easier on the horse. Don’t overload the team. It is be ter to make two trips than to strai the horses or get them in the hab of balking. Don’t feed corn or corn meal to fffß horses during the hot weather. Corf is too heating. J< Don’t spare the oats. The waA fed horse stands up under constan work when the underfed falters. Don’t imagine that when you wate your horse three times a day yoi have done all that nature demands. Don’t let the horses eat too mud green grass. A little while in thi pastures after a day’s work will dc them good, but too much green fooc will work injury and cause the horses to sweat easily at work. - Don’t run down your neighbor’s horses. Praise them when you can, and when you can not, say nothing. Don’t think because your neighbor has bought a stallion that, he has been necessarily cheated and has bought a failure. Give the horse s chance to show by his progeny what he is. Don’t let the stallion stand idle in the barn. Make him work, for it will add to his potency and help pay for his food. Don’t throw away the curry-comb now that fartn work is rushing. It is needed more now than it was las£ winter. Don’t .forget that a box stall is rpuch better than a narrow one for the horses, especially when they have worked hard all day. You like a wide bed, so does a horse. Don’t neglect the colts in the pastures. Round them up each evening and make sure that none have been injured during the day. A slight in--jury attended to at-once may prevent a permanent defect. Leaving the youngster to look after themselves ia bad policy.—National Stockman.

LOW HEADS FOR APPLE TREES. Nearly all old apple trees are too high headed. The idea of their planters and early trainers seems to nave been that it would not do to let branches hang so low that the largest horse could not plow or cultivate close to them without injury. The consequence is the stems mostly run up seven or eight feet without a limb and most of the fruit, exposed to winds, is blown off and spoiled for marketing. If not, it is extremely difficult and even dangerous to gather it by ladders. The way the business is managed now is to train low —keep the branches so that' when loaded they will touch the ground Many of the apples thus grown can be picked from the ground or by low step ladders set under the trees. These low heads are abjected toby some from the inconvenience of driving round in the orchard with a team to gather apples;but when the propeir distances in setting the trees are observed, especially between the rows, the objection has less force.—Lewiston (Me.) Journal. '

Decay in the Morality of Fiction. Harper’s Magazine. ‘ .. Then, is there a decay in the morality of our fiction? It is always pleasant to think that there is a decay ih things; it almost proves that there isj no decay in one’s self; but really, we are disposed, without claiming undue credit for the opinion, to say that there is a moral decay in our fiction. It is more artistic, or perhaps we had better say chic, than it was; but it it is not so sound, we seer quite sure. Eighteen or twenty years age, the news-stand in question would have been covered with novels vilely printed and repulsively bound, but certainly healthier in matter, if not so chic in manner. The people who do these nasty-looking contemporary things—authors, artisans, have got touch, they are clever; ana ■ yet there are plenty of people whe have got touch, who are clever, and % who are not doing nasty-looking things. We all know them; it is needless to name them; but apparently the news-stand believes the public does not want them, at least in book form.

Whom, then, does the literary nastiness of the news-stand accuse, with its decayed fiction? The public taste or the taste of the paiiderer who purveys it? The panderer is probably a person of no taste whatever, good, bad, or indifferent, and at least as innocent as the ladies who write ao many of his nasty-looking novels. All that we can be charitably sure of is that there is a mistake somewhere from which the patrons qf the newsstand are the final sufferers, and that the moral-decay of our fiction is not only undeniable, but is unfortunately insisted upon, mode evident, typical, representative, by the misunderstanding of those who suppose that others, most others, like taint.