Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1895 — TOPICS FOR FARMERS [ARTICLE]

TOPICS FOR FARMERS

A DEPARTMENT PREPARED FOR OUR RURAL FRIENDS. One Farmer Who Will Use Corn Fodder Instsad of Hay—Formula for Preventing- Hog Cholera—When, to Sell Pigs—Weeds Among Potatoes. The Handling of Cornfodder. In 1803 I purchased a corn harvester, believing they were better than the com knife. I cut twenty five acres, and put twelve hills square iu a shock. We cut the fifth and sixth rows first; when we had cut twelve hills'we stepped oIT behind the machine and set our fodder and one of V s held it while the other tied the top with a twine string, and after we had cut through to the end of the row we cut around until the row of shocks was tinislied, and then cut another iu like fia&nner, etc. Toward evening, said Joshua Jester. at the Rippey (Iowa) Farmers’ Institute, we. would stop cutting, and tie the shocks already cut with binding twine. One hundred shocks we thought was a day’s work. I built a platform 10x16 feet on my truck wagon to haul it in with, then took the sulky plow wheels and built a derrick on them, with a lever to hoist the shocks on the wagon. We 'used the lever part of the time on one §tde of the wagon and then on the other. I find the derrick works better With the shocks eighteen feet square than they-do thirteen feet square; ' I secured a busker and shredder, and by this means I husked my corn and stacked my fodder. The live stock eats this shredded fodder up clean. The shredder was run by horse power. My neighbor used a threshing machine with engine, and made better time, but bad more help. I think the shredder is the best, as it leaves the corn on the ear, instead of shelling it. ... .. ' With two years’ experience and results, I shall use corn fodder instead of hay; It is cheaper and better feed. I tMnk~rim~harn is"flip the fodder, but "it must be well cured or it will heat. It will keep well in the staehJf properly topped out with wild hay material that will turn rain. The cost to shred and husk corn Is about $1 per acre.

Host Cholera and Its Cure, Many farmers have given a condition powder composed of intestinal stimulants and antiseptics to hogs sick with cholera. The National Bureau of Animal Industry has recently recommended the following formula as a preventive and palliative remedy in swine diseases, especially in cholera and plague: Take one pound each of wood charcoal, sulphur, sodium sulphate and antimony sulpliid, combined with two pounds each of sodium chlorid, sodium bicarbonate and sodium hyposulphite. Each Ingredient-is to be fully pulverized, and all are .to be thoroughly mix~edr~ For each two hundred pounds live weight of animal, give one daily dose of a large tablespoonful, mixed with the drinking water or with soft, moist food. Small pigs need about a teaspoonful of the powder, and shoats from two to three teaspoonfuls. Hogs are said to like the taste of this medicine. Should the diseased swine refuse either to eat or dripk, it will be necessary to turn them on their backs, and put the dry powdered medicine down their throats with a long-handled spoon. The sulphur-soda-antimony condition powder seems to kill and remove the disease germs and their accumulated poisons. As a preventive, the powder may be fedjn smaller doses to the healthy animals during an epidemic, and it will act as an appetizer. The drinking water should be As pure and clean as possible, and the animals should not be fed in or confined to filthy mud, but should have free access to dry, clean eating spaces and sleeping quarters. Green food, roots or silage should be fed occasionally, with some decayed wood, sods of fresh soil and an abundance of charcoal. It Is so difficult to cure hog cholera that the greatest procauapns should be taken to prevent infe«<sn.

Selling Young Pigs. The chief obstacle to success in growing pigs is the danger of becoming overstocked. There is always a profit If pigs are sold while young. But many farmers who have a fine lot of growing pigs will not sell them, thinking to moke greater profit by feeding until they have attained full growth. In most cases this is a mistake. The older h pig grows the smaller Is usually the profit from feeding it. Besides, It is poor policy for any class of men to always get all the prolt there is in a trade. We have known men so close at a bargain that they could finally find nobody to trade With them. To live aud let live should be the aim of all. A good rule is when breeding animals not to refuse a reasonable offer that would leave a fair profit and not stop further breeding. With stock that Increase so rapidly as do pigs, a very few breeding sows will quickly replace those that are sold. If this Is done repeatedly through the year, the profit each time amounts to more than could he made by feeding animals until they attain, full growth. Ppraylnsr for Fungi and Insects. That paris green and kerosene emulsion still remain the leading insecticides, and that Bordeaux mixture is the best remedy for plant diseases, is the expedience of the New York station at Geneva, as given In The Agriculturist. The knapsack sprayer is generally useful, though extensive growers need a machine of greater capacity. The suction pipe should always enter the tank at the top, and the pump should Be made of brass or be brass-lined. Hmjd pumps should allow the weight of the body to' be used on Um handle while at

work. Vermorel nozzles give a bettefr spray than the disk machines. For spraying potatoes and tomatoesanozzle is needed which can be lowered betwqpn the rows, and directed so as to force the spray up through the vines. The agitator is needed to keep the xmlsons' in solution. The best forms work up and down in an upright tank, like the dash in the old churn. Where the pump piston has a packing this should be often renewed. For killing cabbagq worars aad insects, no liquid has been found equal to dry paris green applied with a hand sifter. Powder guns are: useful for applying dry powdered poisons. pyrethrmn, tobacco dust and sulphur. Ba/nboo extensions should ba used in spraying large trees. fill and Young Farmers. _ Waldo F. Brown, of Ohio, the wellknown agricultural writer, tells in the following how he would manage if h» were a young man on a dairy farm: “If I were a young man and able to work hard I should run as largg iUdalryas the farm would furnish rough feed for, and buy most of my grain, and I would try to dispose of the cream, or engage butter at paying prices, so as to keep the milk at home to be fed to calves and'pigs, and I am satisfied that I could double the profits from my farm and improve it rapidly, for'we should have large quantities of the richest manure and could make all the land that we cultivate very rich. But it seems to me that a man of my age (63) out, of deljt and abie to live comfortably, with a reasonable degree of economy, owes it to himself not to be obliged to work ha rd every day and be tied up at home as I should be with a dairy, and so I am satisfied with moderate success on the farm and to leave the young men the privilege of pushing out and showing what the farm is capable of even in hard times. “There so many specialties in farming nowadays that there is a place £p'r energetic men on the farm and a better chance /or success than in most other callings: The farmer is not likely to become a rich man, but, on the other hand, he is in very little danger of ha a k rupf ey ” ' .... -- •

Weeds Among Potatoes. Late in the season some potato growers think they can allqjv weeds to grow without injury to the erbp. This is a great mistake. Until the plant naturally dies down from the ripening of its tubers it needs all the moisture that the soil can furnish. We have often seen in potato patches weeds that were overlooked in the early hoeing, and after the crop has been hoed by growing eighteen inches or morp tall, and evaporating every day more moisture than the potato plant itself receives. Their roots are then so intertwined with those of the potato that the weeds cannot be pulled up. The only remedy then is to cut down the weed as close to the ground as possible. This will stop the evaporation of moisture from its leaves and the root will consequently take less from the soil. But It would have been muuch cheaper to brush this weed with a hoe while still small and when the slightest brush would destroy it.—American Cultivator. More Sweet Apples Wanted. The attention of apple growers has been too exclusively directed to the cultivation of tart varieties, as these are best for cooking in pies. But for baking without the crust apples are better to be sweet, and there are not enough varieties "to furnish a supply during the season. The Sweet Bough, which will soon be in condition, is an excellent baking apple, and so, too, is the Golden Sweet, which ripens a little later. Forwinter use the Talman Sweet is the kind most frequently put up, but it does not bake so well as some others. The Pound Sweet i 3 a much better apple when not overgrown, but it will not keep later than February. We need some sweet apples that will keep until April or May. Many persons whose digestion is weak cannot eat pie, and if there were more good baking apples the pie could be generally dispensed with.

Shade for ’’hickenß. July and August are the two trying months for fowls, old and young, and the true poultry keeper will have an eye to their comfort. Shade Is one of the things essential to the comfort of poultry. Hens that suffer from the heat will not lay; the young chicks that have no shady retreat will not thrive. Natural shade of trees and bushes is the best, because such shady spots are usually open and free in the breeze. But, if such shade canuot be thgn a low shed Is the next best thing. Build it so that the air can circulate freely beneath IL Silver Hull Buckwheat. This new variety of buckwheat has the advantage of being earlier than the old-fashioned kind, and its grain will turn out more flour to the bushel. It may bo sown earlier on account of its earlier ripening, but it has the habit of setting its bloom over a longer period, some of the first flowers forming seed and shelling while the latest are in bloom. It requires judgment to cut the .crop when the largest proportion of the grain Is ready for harvest It will never do to leave It till all has ripened, for some of its later shoots are In blossom until time for fall frosts. Ripening Creamery Cream The souring of cream, which is necessary to make butter that will keep well, must be accomplished with creamery cream after it has been taken from the creamer. It Is well to keep it twen-ty-four hours after being gathered before it Is churned. Then, If the cream has been gathered through several days, the whole should be stirred well together each day so as to mix the old and the new. If this is not done mould may form on the cream earliest gathered, because it Is not brought In contact with oxygen. Cream should, in all cases, be kept where It will be free from contact with unpleasant odors.