Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1878 — AGRICULTURAL ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

—The following seasonable agricultural items are from the pen of tho agricultural editor of tho Des Moines Register: Every intelligent boy 011 tho farm should learn to graft. It is a very simple operation. - _ If you would have the cow do well with you, you must do well with her. Farmers better not set all their eggs under one goose this year—especially if that goose is called wheat. Tho golden text is, “Tho world’s best crop is tame grasses, and the best animal to utilize it is the cow.” Many pretended farmers go to town and smoke, spit and drink beer all day, and then go homo and grunt about hard times. Corbett said “soft hands are indicative of soft brains.” Limited means and gaudy pride have no business farming. The old poets said that “before tho temple of virtue”—meaning all excellence—“the gods have placed labor.” Let everybody', without respoct to age, sex, color or “previous condition,” know that it is w ork alone that conquers. }

In planting trees, recollect they are not a stake to be driven into the ground. Dig a large, flat pit for the tree, and put in the bottom surface-loam. Spread the roots out carefully and equally, and place the loose, fine dirt under and among the roots, with the hand. Fill up the hole and press it down gently with the foot, but do not stamp it down. The National Live Stock Journal gives a volume of good advice in the following paragraph: Breeding for speed alone is, at best, an uncertain business; and when to this uncertainty we add the expenses of training, the chances of profits are so slight that we would not advise any general farmer to engage in the business, either with trotting or running horses. This is the season farmers should pay especial attention to their horses and their drivers. Many new and untried hands are commencing on tRe farm. High-spirited horses (and this is the kind to own and work) are easily ruined by ignorant, careless or vicious men. The first ill-treatment to a noble horse should be cause sufficient and irrevocable for a hand’s dismission. The neglect of farmers to grow grapes would be astonishing, did we not consider the great amount of mystery that has been thrown around the training, pruning and culture generally by some writers. There is no reason why every farmer’s family should not have all the grapes they can eat; and there is scarcely a town or village lot so at least one vine may be grown.