Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1876 — HOME, FARM AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

HOME, FARM AND GARDEN.

—Ceilings that look very rough and manifest a tendency to peel should be gone over with a solution of one ounce alum to one quart water. Tltlf. Will remove the superfluous lime anti render the celling white. » —Toremove freckles strain horse-radish into a cup of cold sour milk; let it stand twelve hours, strain, and apply two or three times a day. Or mix lemon juice, one ounce; pulverized borax, one-quarter dram; sugar, one-half dram; keep a few days in a glass bottle, then apply occasionally. —To utilise corn-beef fat pare several potatoes, slice thin, throw them in the fat that has been saved in boiling com-beds. Boil the fat and potatoes three-quarters of an hour, skimming carefully and strain off from the sediment. The fat will be sweet and solid, suitable for ordinary cooking purposes. —No business occupation or employment is so sure to be remunerative as farming, if the necessary conditions to success are complied with. Out of nothing nothing comes, and this is as true in agriculture as in any other pursuit. Hundreds of farmers are complaining about I>oor success; they are expecting something to grow oat of nothing. Their fathers ana grandfathers have been taking off the cream of the land, and they expect to <Jo the same, when, in fact, the supply is exhausted. Plant-food has been carried off from the farm so long that there is little if any left to mgpure crops. Tender plants spring up and grow on air and moisture; they thrive in early spring, but there being no strength in the soil, the scorching sun bakes the ground and dries them up so that there is a small return for all the labor. The soil is not to blame. Nature is not to blame. But the farmer Is to blame who expects something to conje from nothing. Making the soil rich in plant-food with thorough culture will jnake farming a remunerative employment.—Ohio Farmer. —We believe that the sprinklipg of plants during dry weather not only does no good buj, is injurious. When from using the watering-pot, it seems as if the earth were wet, we shall find that it has penetrated scarcely half an inch. This can have little effect upon the rotate, while evaporation carries it away at once upon receiving the first rays of the sun. The surface earth is made, by artificial sprinkling, hard and close, thus excluding the ‘ air—forming a readier conductor of heat and offering a barrier to the .ready absorption of moisture and rain when showers come—as they sometimes do—to mitigate the killing effects of drouths long continued. If we would preserve the freshness of our flower-beds, and are willing to take the time and pains, they should be watered after sundown until the water is about to run off. Then wait for-this to soak is and water again and again. Finally spread freshly-cut grass over the entire surface an inch thick. This does not mar, as one would suppose, the appearance of the bed after a tew hours, as the color of dried grass is nearly that of dry earth, and consisting of short and fine blades as it will be if cut with the lawnmower, it very soon resembles the earth itself. A covering like this suppresses weeds and the drouth must be severe indeed to seriously affect plants thus treated. We recommend the same for fruit and ornamental trees transplanted this spring. —Rural Neva Yorker.