Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1879 — AGRICULTURAL. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL.

The best soil for beans is a mellow clay or sandy loam. Prepare the land as for corn, fitted in the nicest manner. Plant ten days or two weeks after planting corn. Marrow beans require one and one-eighth bushels of seed per acre; mediums, three-fourths of a bushel; pea beans, one-half bushel; kidney or other large beans, more, in proportion to size. A fair crop is twenty bushels per acre. One of the new industries of Germany, reported by Dr. Stutzer to be “now in a flourishing condition,” is the manufacture of artificial clover seed. Fragments of gravel are sifted until particles of a suitable size are obtained, and the substitute for the seed is then shaken up with some coloring substance until it acquires the desired hue. An ordinary pocket microscope is quite sufficient, however, to expose the cheat. I had a mare some years ago that had a large wart on her side where the harness rubbed and kept it sore. In summer the flies made it worse. To prevent this I put on a good daub of tar, and in a few weeks the waft was killed and disappeared. I have frequently tried it since on cattle and horses, and seldom had on occasion to use a second application. The remedy is simple and effectual.

As the State farm at Monson, Mass., the cows are milked precisely at 5 a. m. and 5 p. m., and each cow’s milk is weighted and the weight recorded. The records show that fifty-five cows gave, in one week in June, 2 3/4 tons of milk, and in one week in December, tons of milk. The whole amount of milk produced during last year was a little over 120 tons. Seven cows have given an average of about twenty quarts of milk each day.

Potato water, or water in which potatoes have been boiled, is now recommended in various quarters as not only an effective but an immediate remedy for lice on cows and other cattle; also for ticks. The affected parts are to be bathed with the potato water; one apgenerally sufficient. This remedy (if remedy it proves) has the merit of being exceedingly simple, easily employed, and without danger of injury to the cattle. The use of cow’s-milk in nervous disorders is very highly recommended by our best physicians. They prescribe it to be used at all hours, and recommend the patient to drink as much as four quarts per day if agreeable. The constant and exclusive use of this article after a time becomes very tiresome, and the milk acquires an unpleasant taste. It may in a degree be avoided by heating the milk and adding enough salt to flavor it, in this form doing as much good as in any other.

A correspondent in the Rural World shows some points of difference between British and American methods of feeding stock, as follows: In Great Britain turnips are cut, reduced to a pulp and mixed with cut hay or straw, and allowed to ferment. Hay and straw are always cut up and mixed with meal. Stock raisers in England buy oil cake, which Americans consider too expensive. They wet and use it with cut hay and straw and meal and pulped turnips. The manure from such feeding is regarded as of great value. Experience with the Colorado beetle should prompt the early planting of potatoes; also abundant manuring and good preparation of the soil. The latter often doubles the crop. An extra 100 bushels of potatoes per acre are well worth working for. It does not pay to plant large seed. Small well-ripened seed will be the most profitable when its cost is considered. After much ob servation there appears no difference in the crop from small and large seed. Of course there is a limit, and potatoes as small as hickory nuts are not referred to. Regarding borerers In peach trees. says the Country Gentleman, it is useful to heap a peck of dry slacked lime about the peach trees after the grubs had been picked, and before the earth is drawn back to the tree. The lime kills any grubs that may he left. If a live grub is thrown into the dry lime, it will soon die; this may be tried to satisfy an inquiring mind. Having used lime in this way in 1877, the writer found no borers at all in his trees in 1878, and therefore has confidence in this means of repressing the of this pest. Much clover seed is wasted by sowing too early and also by scattering it upon the surface without covering. All seeds should be covered, although under very favorable: circumstances they would sprout and grow, even if not covered. If you harrow your wheat, that should be done as soon as the - ground is dry, then sow the clover immediately after the harrow, the gradual leveling down of the little furrows made by the harrow teeth-will cover the seed. When clover seed is sown on the surface too early a warm rain will sprout it, then a frosty night will destroy the young rootlets which have not yet penetrated Into the ground, and the seed is wasted. A correspondent of the Indiana Farmer, from Labette, Kansas, uses the following contrivance to prevent cows from sucking themselves: “Cowsmay be cured of sucking themselves by the the use of two sticks long enough to reach from the butte of the horns to the back of the shoulders. Cut notches in both ends of the sticks, and secure one end of each to the base of your cow’s horn’s. Then pass a rope around her body just back of her fore legs. Fasten the other ends of the sticks to this rope by means of knots about midway of each side. I will pay for all the milk the cow gets when the above directions are followed.”