Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1895 — TOPICS FOR FARMERS [ARTICLE]

TOPICS FOR FARMERS

A DEPARTMENT PREPARED FOR OUR RURAL FRIENDS Day of the Small Farm Has Come— Value of a Rapid Walking Horse— Marketing Garden Vegetahlea—How to Fatten Cattle - The Small Farm West. Even in California, the land of great ranches and vast estates, they begin to see that the day of the small fjtrm has come. Indeed, the San Francisco Chron-. iele says that it has for years preached the gospel of the small farm, well diversified, as the keynote of California's future prosperity. It means more homes, more good citizens and greater general good than rich mines or vast fields and orchards can afford. The thrifty small farmer is the last to feel the pinch of hard times. He may never be rich, but he need never be poor. He can earn leisure and learn how to, enjoy it, and his children will have the home influence all children are entitled to. The Santa Rosa Republican notes an Increasing inquiry for small places in the country, more especially to rent. There is now a tendency from the cities, instead of toward them. Wage workers are seeking small farms to work for themselves. We should have ten of these small, well-worked places where we now have one. The single-crop man is rich one year and poor the next five. The man who has cows, hogs, poultry and vegetables, as well as fruit, is the man who is the most prosperous and has the best home.

Rapid Walking Horses. At the present time there are, of course, nothing like as many long journeys made by the aid of a 1 horse as In the days of our forefathers, but nevertheless it is still a welcome attribute in a driver, the ability to keep up a smart pace and to do it cheerfully when not forged into a trot, says Wallace’s Monthly. Men who have the initial handling of colts are, in a great measure, responsible for the rapidity of their walk, and it should be the aim of such men to see that the colts are taught to walk five miles an hour, and do it without urging. Once acquired, the possession of a rapid walk will be of benefit should the colt as a matured horse develop into a trotter, and should he prove fit only for farm labor or business purposes, the fast walker will sell quickly where a “pokey” animal would be a drug on the market

Marketing Garden Vegetables. The work of growing garden vegetables is only a small part~of the labor required'before they can be turned Into money. They are all very bulky, and for this reason the market garden must needs be near a city or large village, or at least near a railroad statlofi, where the crop can be shipped. Land that has these advantages is worth many times as much as other land of equal fertility that is not near to market. The gardener must also have large amounts of manure, and these cannot be secured except near cities or villages. In market gardening, however, where there is a near market for the product, it will pay to use commercial fertilizers, especially the nitrates, which are much more easily applied than stable manure, and do not dry out the soil as the manure does. To Fatten Cattle Quickly. To fatten cattle most rapidly at this season of the year provide a pasture with at least one acre of grass for each cow or steer. Begin, says the Agriculturist, with five pounds of cornmeal and one pound crushed oil cake for each animal. Increase the feed by adding one pound of cornmeal and onehalf pound of oil cake daily for two weeks. If corn is ground without the cob, make a mixture of three parts’ meal and one part bran or mill feed by weight. A ration of twenty pounds meal and bran, eight pounds oil cake with grass, water and salt will fatten the animals as rapidly as heavier feeding. I.,would use nothing but old process oilmeal. Sterilizing Milk. Provide six or eight half-pint bottles according to the number of times the child is fed during the twenty-four hours, directs the Ladies’ Horae Journal. Put the proper quantity of food for one feeding in each bottle and use j a tuft of cotton batting as a stopper. I Have a saucepan that the bottles can , stand in conveniently. Invert a perforated tin pie plate In the bottom, and put in enough water to come above , the milk in the bottles. Stand bottles on it. When the water boils, draw the saucepan to a cooler part of the stove, where the water will remain near the boiling point, but not actually boiling. Cover the saucepan and let the bottles remain in it one hour. Put them in the ice box, or a cool place In winter. Relative Valuea of Manure. At the Connecticut Experiment Station four plots were selected and planted in corn, put the same distance in row , and hills apart, and cultivated the same way four years. To one plat ten cords of cow manure were given each year; to the second plat hogpen manure at the rate of thirteen and a half cords; to the third plat fertilizer chemicals at the rate of 1,700 pounds, and to the fourth none. At the end of four years the cow manure had averaged 68 bushels per acre; the hogpen, 66 bushels; the fertilizers, 50 bushels, and the unmanured land, 36 bushels. If we look, however, at the available plant food left in the soil at the end of four years for future crops, the account . will stand thus: Cow manure left 533 ! pounds nitrogen, 388 pounds phosphoric 1 add and 407 pounds potash; hogpen,

897 of nitrogen, 1,713 phosphoric arid and 57 pounds potash; fertilizers, 238 pounds nitrogen, 476 phosphoric acid and 107 pounds of potash; while the unmanured was short 165 pounds nitrogen, 37pounds of potash, and in excess 37 pounds phosphoric acid. Cow manure has been estimated to be worth $2.21 per ton, and swine $3.29 per ton. Mildew on Roses. For roses, the mlldqrw may be controlled by sulphur, either dusted upon the foliage or heated upon the greenhouse pipes. The black spot has been checked by Bordeaux mixture, and the ammoniacal solution of carbonate of copper, says the Philadelphia Ledger. The formula for Bordeaux mixture is five pounds of lime and five pounds of sulphate - of copper in fifty gallons of water; each may be prepared and kept in stock, to be mixed as needed for spraying. The formula for ammoniacal solution of the carbonate of copper is five ounces of carbonate of copper dissolved in three quarts of strong (419 ammonia, to be afterward added to fifty gallons of water. These two fungicides are the chief compounds that can be recommended for fungous I diseases in the greenhouse. A solution of potassic sulphide (one-half ounce of sulphide to one gallon of water) has proved a successful remedy in carnation diseases. Good results have followed the use of Bordeaux mixture for fungi on violets and many other plants would doubtless be benefited by its use.

Fowls in Gardens. On the vineyards of France poultry are kept in large numbers and permitted to wander at will for ten months in the year, with benefit to*the vines, to -themselves and to their owners. Rest assured, says The English, Planter, if fowls can get plenty of grubs, worms and insects, whose room is usually better than their company, they will not do much damage to fruit of any kind, though a little tax in this way will be paid for in another. As to corn crops, I came across a striking proof of the value of poultry some time ago. Visiting a large farmer, who keeps several hundred poultry, he told me that last year he had two houses with fifty hens in each in a pasture field, adjoining which was a large field sown iu oats. His bailiff wanted the fowls removed, as they were wandering all over the oat field, scratching everywhere. Finally, he became rather afraid of the effect himself, and one day went down, dug up the ground in several places, to find that not an oat had been interfered with, and he never had a better crop in his life. The fowls were feasting upon,the natural food In the soil.

Shelled Eggs Shipped in Bulk. A consular report tells of large quantities of shelled eggs being sent to England from Russia and Italy, for the use of pastry cooks, bakers, hotels and restaurants. The eggs are emptied from their shells into tin cans holding a thousand or more,and after being her-. metlcally sealed, are packed with straw into wooden cases, the taps, through which the contents are drawn, being added by those using them. Great care is necessary in selecting the eggs, as a single bad one would spoil the whole lot Lower prices and saving of time and greater ease and less expense and loss in handling are named as the advantages of this system. Thus far the Russian product has been uniformly good, whereas the Italian shipments have so frequently been spoiled that analysis of the Russian supply has been ordered to determine if preservatives arc used. The Barley Harvest. No kind of farm animals excepting poultry will attack a head of barley. Fowls will peck at it to get out the grain and then eat that, but the strong beards are repellant to all other kinds of stock. With the self-binding harvesters now generally used for barley harvest very little of the grain is dropped on the ground, and there is not much use raking the field after it to gather what is scattered. In the olden time, when barley was cut with a reaper and gathered in cocks like hay without binding, there were always a great many rakings. Usually these were badly stained and could not be sold with main crop, but they made good feed when threshed by themselves and ground. Many barley growers still prefer the old way of harvesting, as can be cured in less time if allowed to lay a day unbound before being put into cock than if bound in a bundle as soon as cut, ae It must be when cut with the harvester. Cultivating After Rains. Every time rain falls all tilled land should be cultivated. There are many light rains through the summed, which wet only the surface of the soli, and If this is not cultivated under, the moisture speedily evaporates and is lost This cultivation has also another effect in developing nitrates in the»soil. Whatever vegetable matter is in the soil needs only to be brought into contact with oxygen to be decomposed and its manurial elements set free. There is also on soil that is cultivated frequently a deposit of moisture by the atmosphere which it contains, and this, being really a dew, always contains more ammonia than does ordinary rain water. Use the Emoothing Harrow. Make good use of the smoothing batrow in the corn and other cultivated fields. No tool in use will kill so many weeds as this, if used at the right time. It will keep down the weeds and keep the surface mellow, the two prime necessities In the culture of any crop. The Berry Bnah. Berry bushes will bear longer If the fruit Is picked off clean. If you should have more than you want to use, give some poor neighbor a chance.