Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1899 — FARM AND GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM AND GARDEN

Manure for Orchard*. So much mischief can be done by applying manures of the wrong kind in •orchards, says the Agriculturist, that I doubt if we do not lose more by manuring than by neglecting to manure. Fruit trees do not require at any time barnyard manures, or their equivalent. What they require is a supply of inorganic food. You can do no better for apple trees than to supply them with coal ashes in which there is a liberal admixture of wood ashes. The coal ashes loosen the soil; the wood ashes furnish the fertilizer. If you can get a supply of old mortar you have just the thing you need. A mixture of lime and salt, when so mixed as to leave no free salt, is excellent for all fruit trees. All such manures should be applied, as a top-dressing. A peach or plum orchard needs nothing better than swamp muck or earth from the woods, with a slight addition of phosphate and potash. If barnyard manure is applied at any time, it should be thoroughly decomposed and applied as a top-dressing. Such manure, if placed about the roots, when planting a pear or apple tree, will kill it. Grapes, of course, want phosphates and potash. They will also respond to a free application of liquid manures during their periods of rest, both in winter and in midsummer. All the tall growing berries, of the bramble sort, will use a large amount of organic manure. But be careful about dressing your raspberries with rank undecomposed barnyard manure. The probability is at any time you w’ill develop a fungoid disease that you cannot easily master. If you use barnyard manure in raspberries it should be thoroughly comminuted with the soil as a compost. In fact, I prefer to compost every manure before it is placed on my gardens. Equally important as the manure is the mulching of our fruit trees and bushes of all sorts. Covering a Wagon Sent. Procure flannel, either black, blue or green, two dozen buttons for the top of cushion, and the same number for the bottom, black oilcloth for lining the “fall,” a spool of stout linen thread, and a long darning needle at least five inches in length. Using the worn “fall” as a pattern, cut the oilcloth of the same size and the flannel three-fourths inch wider all around. Bind the edges of the flannel over the oilcloth, basting firmly with firm silk thread, stitch the two together, the line of stitching being very near the edge of the bound-over flannel. For the seat cut a narrow strip of oilcloth—buckram is better if you have it—for use as stiffening. Lay narrow tucks in the flannel, both lengthwise and crosswise, stitching them in. This forms squares, and the lines of tucks should be very regular and about four inches apart. Cover the bottom of the seat with oilcloth, cutting it of the desired size. Cut the tucked flannel threefourths inch larger, and stitch as for the “fall,” with the stiffening in place along three edges. Slip this cover over the “hair” or “spring” foundation and fasten the end firmly. Place a stout, twine in your long needle, to it fasten one of the larger buttons, put the needle through the covered cushion at a corner of one square, draw down into the cushion as far as possible, pressing the button with some wooden object from the upper side to force it into the yielding material of the foundation, tie a slip knot in your thread at the lower side, put on the small button, and cutting the thread three Inches from the cushion, wind the end between the button last added and the cushion around the eye of the button. The tension will hold it if drawn tight enough through the cushion. At the four corners of each square place buttons. —Orange Judd Farmer. & Care of A»paragus. In the fall the tops of asparagus should be cut and the bed rid of grass and weeds, says Western Flowman. The asparagus seed should not be allowed to reseed the bed, as they will simply cause superfluous plants, making the product small and weak. A liberal covering of coarse manure should be applied, serving the double purpose qf enriching the soil and keeping out the frost If suflacient loose trash is spread on—it must be loose to prevent heating and smothering—to prevent the frost from reaching the crowns, the result will. be good, as the plant is one of the earliest to start in the spring, and prepares for this during the winter, If the soil conditions are favorable. In the early spring time the coarse manure should be raked off and the fine manure worked in the ground.. An application of coarse salt is very beneficial. Growing Spinach. To grow spinach . successfully the. work of preparing the ground should begin in autumn after the fall crop of vegetables has been harvested. Work into the soil thoroughly an ample supply of well-rotted manure, then level the ground off smoothly as possible

and sow the seed in shallow drills from twelve to sixteen inches apart. Sow the seed scatteringly, for it has been found that thick seeding does not pay. This done, cover it only about half an inch deep, and in conclusion firm the ground by treading down each row with the feet. It is well to get the seed in early in November, for then the plants will have a chance to come up and be thinned out before real winter weather arrives. When the ground is slightly frozen a moderate mulch of litter of leaves may be placed over the ’plants. In this way an early crop of spinach may be gathered—so early, in fact, that it will be entirely out of the way by the time the ground} is ready for other crops.—Farm and Field. T ” Ventilating the Cellar. A great mistake, says Medical Classics, is sometimes made in ventilating cellars and milk houses. The object of ventilation is to keep the cellars cool and dry, but this object often fails of being accomplished by a common mistake, and instead the cellar is made both warm and damp. A cool place should never be ventilated, unless the air admitted is cooler than the air within, or is at least as cool as that or a very little warmer. The warmer the air the more moisture it holds in suspension. Necessarily the cooler the air the more this moisture is condensed and precipitated. When a cool cellar is aired on a warm day the entering air being in motion appears cool, but as it fills the cellar the cooler air with which it becomes mixed chills it, the moisture Is condensed, and dew is deposited on the cold walls, and may often be seen running down them in streams. Then the cellar is damp and soon becomes moldy. To avoid this the windows should only be opened at night, and late—the last thing before retiring. There is no need to fear that the night air is unhealthful; it is as pure as the air of midday, and is really drier. The windows should be closed before sunrise in the morning, and kept closed and shaded through the day. If the air of the cellar is damp it may be thoroughly dried by placing in it a peck of fresh lime In an open box. Nut-Bearing Trees. All the nut-growing trees do best when planted where they are to stand permanently, and al) must be planted in the fall, as once the nuts become thoroughly dried their vitality is destroyed and they refuse to germinate. The nuts should be planted only two or three inches deep in order that the frost may get to them and break open the shell. Among all the nut trees none makes so quick a return as the chestnut when planted where conditions are favorable. The American chestnut is as gdod and sweet as any from any country, but the size of the nuts do not compare with the Japanese varieties. The best way to secure Japanese chestnut trees is to plant native chestnuts and afterward graft Japanese scions on them. A similar plan was followed with a chestnut grove in New Jersey. The native trees were cut down and allowed to sprout up, and these sprouts were grafted with scions from Japanese chestnut trees. In ten years each one of these grafts was yielding a crop which brought from $5 to $7 to the tree, and this yield will increase every year for twenty or thirty years, when the yield from one tree will be as much as S3O. Walnuts, hickory nuts op pecans are easily grown, the first two in the North and the last in the South. "Walnut trees come into bearing in a few years where they are cultivated, and in course of time produce lumber of the most valuable kind. The Devil’s Paint Brash. This “worst” weed Is rapidly entering Northern Pennsylvania from New York State. Its similarity to ladies' paint brush is great so far as character goes—far greater than the similarity in name. Salt is the remedy recommended. Prof. Buckout says that a dressing of ten to fifteen pounds a square rod will kill nearly all of it, and this is especially practicable when the first patches appear. Another application may be needed to kill out some occasional plants that survived the first application. This amount of salt is at the rate, say, of a ton an acre, and while it will kill very young grass plants and some leaves, it will not materially injure a sod. Agricultural salt will do the work, and is much less expensive than ordinary salt.—National Stockman. Poultry Notes. Drinking water often spreads disease. Fowls with colds or roup should not be allowed to drink with the others. J Common fowls can be greatly improved in size and vigor by selecting the best, and setting only eggs from the best layers. Turtteys should not be confined while fattening. If they are fed plenty of corn and soft feed three times a day they will keep quiet enough and put on flesh very fast. White corn is liked better than yellow by many turkey growers, who think it gives a clear white color to the flesh. Some wheat, barley and buckwheat should be given also. The various oat feeds on the market are much praised by some poultry feeders. They at least afford a change from the everlasting shorts and cornmeal, of which the hens get very tired. Fowls like turnips either boiled or , raw, and this root should be used freeiy throughout the winter. The hens will make a better use than any other farm animals of the surplus turnips and potatoes. ' Too many people reason that if a dozen hens win give a good profit, another dozen in the same coop will double the profit. One must resolutely keep down the number, so that there will ba no crowding.