Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1893 — FARMS AND FARMERS [ARTICLE]

FARMS AND FARMERS

How to Handle the Butt A bull is a good deal like dynamite; no one knows when he is going to explode. Dehorning is not a guarantee of safety, for we have read within the past year of several instances where persons were either killed or greatly injured by dehorned bulls. It is necessary that the bull have vigor and physical force, and to supply that he must have exercise. A. L. Crosby, of Maryland, several years ago contributed to Hoard’s Dairyman his method of handling a bull. From the same we quote as follows: Make a pen large enough for the bull to exercise in (mine is about 25x40 feet) and divide it in the middle by a strong partition. The best way to make the fence is to plant a continuous row of posts close enough together so the bull cannot get his head between them and about seven feet above the ground; eighteen inches will be deep enough to plant them. Of course the “holes” will be a ditch wide enough to receive the posts and eighteen inches deep. On the top of these posts nail a board to keep them in line and from spreading. In each division of the pen have a door, and in the partition—at one side —have two strong planks to slip in as bars from the outside of the pen. Adjoining the pen make a box stall with a roof*bver it, and in this stall have a manger and feeding alley. To operate, slip the bars which confine the bull to one of the divisions of the pen; then turn the cow into the other, take out the bars and the bull can enter where the cow is. Afterward, when desired, separate cow and bull by means of the bars and you can enter the division occupied by the cow and lead her out. The only trouble in operating this pen is in separating bull and cow; but an. ear of corn or something that the bull likes will usually coax him from one division to another, or by walking on top of the fence —on the board —you can drive him by means of a long-handled whip with a stinging lash. —— Friends, this pen will give you absolute safety from all danger in handling a bull; it is worth all it costs in saving time used in exercising a bull kept in a stable, and many times its cost from the immunity it gives from the distressing accidents (?) caused by vicious bulls.

A Misfit. Chicago Inter-Ocean. Dr. E. P. Miller, of Kansas, advocates the using of standard bred trotting horses for farm and draft purposes. It seems to us that the doctor has omitted to look at one very important point, and that is the slope of the shoulder. The shoulder of the trotter has a marked backward slope to the rear point of the withers. This must be so to give free, open action to the forelegs. But such a shoulder is in bad shape for the collar and heavy impact of continuous pulling. Such work needs the more vertical line of the shoulder of the draft horse. This teaches us the ever-ruling truth of the old Arabian maxim, “Form is everything to purpose.” In our opinion any effort to make profitable farm horses out of standard bred trotters is about as consistent as growing Jersey cattle for beef purposes.

Turnips. I write of turnip growing in connection with pickles, because I have never found any other conditions so favorable for growing turnips as a cucumber patch, says Waldo F. Brown in the Ohio Farmer. I scarcely ever fail of getting a good yield on such land, and the best crop I ever grew (500 bushels to the acre) was where I had a splendid pickle crop planted Tune 30, after a full crop of early peas. We keep down the weeds in the cucumber plot, and the land is worked fine and is well settled. About the first of August, when there comes a light rain, we sow a pound to the acre of turnip seed and hoe it in very lightly. We wish simply to break the crust and fine the surface and kill any weeds that may be starting. The cucumber vines shade and protect the young tnrnips, and the cool nights of September soon kill the vines and the turnips take possession of the soil. The cost of putting in the crop is very small; a pound of seed worth 50 cents or less and about a day’s work to scratch over the acre, and they can be harvested for three or four cents a bushel. Sometimes they can be sold in bulk at a large profit. I have sold in favorable years by the wagon load at 60 cents and by the car load at 33 cents, but if none are spld they pay to grow for stock food. I do not like them as well as beets for feed, but they cost little, and all stock soon learn to like them. We feed sparingly to our Worses and colts, and liberally to all our cattle except the cows giving milk, and make them the principal food of the brood sows. It is best to/ winter a part of the crop in pits, as they start soon to grow in a warm cellar. I predict good demand and prices for turnips riext fall, for, through large sections of the country, the potato-crop will be a very small acreage, and the probabilities are that the yield will also be poor. Machinery on the. Farm. The loss of time by the use of dull t *ols, or of implements not adapted for the purpose to which they may be applied, compels the fanner to

hire more help than should be the case if he was alive to the opportunities offered by labor-saving appliances. A comparison of the old-time method of cutting the wheat with the scythe and by the present method of cutting and binding the wheat with the harvester, is sufficient to show that the enormous crops of' wheat could not now be grown and harvested under old systems. The labor that once assisted in the fields has been transferred to the workshops, more mechanics and fewer farm laborers being the result. The fact that wheat and corn sell at lower prices than formerly does not imply that’ the profits are less. The expense of one bushel of wheat, before the introduction of the newest improved machines, was more than the selling price of to-day, and the profits were as small as at the present time. Machinery assists in increasing the number of bushels and reduces the cost, which includes all the necessary work attendant on maintaining a larger number of laborers and teams. A comparison of profits will show that labor-saving machinery enables the farmer to secure larger profits now than in former days, and that the work is less arduous and fatigueing. The farmer of half a century ago was daily on the watch for rains and sunshine, and he was also compelled to face delays that often involved the loss of the entire crop, but at the present day he cuts and binds a whole field alone, riding on a seat and can accomplish in a few hours the work that required several days for his ancestor to perform, and he can plow, cultivate and harrow his corn by riding. Potatoes are now cut up for seed, planted, covered and harvested by machines, and the hay is loaded upon the wagon as the horses are walking along the windrows. Vehicles are also lighter and stronger, and the manure can be spread over the ground by an attachment to the wagon. A glance over the field will show a most wonderful progress in the invention of machinery and appliances to be used on the farm, which places fanning within the reach of many who could not otherwise perform the necessary labor, and, strange to say, the wages of farm laborers are higher than before, for improved implements have assisted many of them to work for themselves.