Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1900 — FARM AND GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM AND GARDEN

Handling Corn Shocks. The report of the Kansas State Board Bf Agriculture says where hand labor |s plenty the standard price for cutting Icorn by hand Is 5 cents per shock, fourteen by fourteen hills square, without board, or 80 cents per acre, as there are sixteen shocks of this size per acre. .Corn should always be cut on bright, plear days, or on such a day as is good Jo cure hay In. Two men should work together, and the shocks should be started on a jack, which is made by putting two legs, well braced together, near one end of a 10-foot scantling, and having an auger hole near the upper end for a broom handle. As soon as four armfuls are set up against the jack the shock should be loosely, tried with a stalk and the jack removed. As soon as the shocks have thoroughly cured, say two weeks after cutting, those that are to be stored in the barn should be baled under CLOOO pounds pressure and tied up with a wire (common hay-baling wire, one wire will tie up two shocks), and those that are to be fed from the field can be pulled up tight with rope and pulley and tied with binding twine; .the twine should be saturated with coal oil to prevent mice and insects from destroying it. Eminent professors have agreed that it only takes one and a half Inches of rainfall to wash all traces of digestible matter out of a shock of alfalfa, and corn shocks are also affected, but not to so great a degree. They have also agreed that well-cureu corn fodder, put under a good roof without having had any rain on it, is in every respect just the same as ensilage, except the water content, and it is only necessary to cut It and add water to secure food identical to ensilage without the cost of a silo, with its short life, and also without the 20 to 25 per cent waste that mold causes in the corners of the silo.— Prairie Farmer. Productive Wyandottes. The accompanying illustration shows a pen of three Wyandotte pullets which laid last year 472 eggs and reared 31 chicks. The food consumed cost $2.02. The hens were kept in a yard by themselves and had a run on a fenced yaid covered with good grass which was kept short by the frequent use of a lawn mower, as It was used as a drying ground for household linen. The fowls were fed on corn, and chopped waste

meat from the kitchen, with soft boats Broken in a steel mill. The bones were soft and were chopped with the meat. A small stream ran through the plot. The hens were early chicks of the previous year, and laid a few eggs in November of that year. They have never mixed with the other fowls and have been confined to their yard the whole time. The three hens weigh twenrypight and a half pounds. Value of Wet Land. “Don’t worry because you have a wet piece of land on your faxm,” says J. S. Trigg, of lowa. “The chances are that it Is by all odds the most valuable tract of land on the farm. Study how it may be most economically and advantageously drained, and then tackle It. The richest lands in Europe are the reclaimed farms wrested from the bottom of the North Sea in Holland. The redeemed peat bogs of Minnesota give fields of Inexhaustible fertility. The muskrat bogs of lowa will grow eighty bushels of corn to the acre when drained. The wet lands of the Northwest, upon which a settler would have starved to death in an early day, now ditched and reclaimed, are richer and more productive than those of the historic delta of the Nile. Give us bogs before gravel knolls, wet flats before limestone ridges, a black gumbo before a light loam. “Wet lands are Invariably good grass lands. Where grass will grow stock will thrive, and stock means money for the man who raises It.” Hog Cholera Problem. The hog cholera problem is ever present and it is not improbable the time will come when this disease can be successfully treated or at least held within bounds, says the Orange Judd Farmer. The so-called new treatment, for hog cholera, that of feeding the meat from Ewine dying of cholera to healthy pigs, 1 the subject of the latest bulletin eent

out by the agriculture experiment station at Purdue University, Indiana. The claim made was that feeding this diseased flesh produced a mild form of the disease and pigs thus fed would hereafter be free from cholera. This theory was advanced several years ago and caused considerable comment. Director Plumb, however, concludes the method of treatment nbt entirely a success, according to the testimony at hla command. The experiment station does not indorse this method of treatment and distinctly so states. “Hog cholera is a contagious disease, and when once it secures a foothold in a herd, usually runs its courst, and after much fatality becomes more or less extinct, especially where serious attempts are made to stamp out the disease. Thus far ho certain remedy, based on an extended trial, has been brought out. The Indiana experiment station will indorse no hog cholera remedy now on the market, and the most we can recommend is absolute cleanliness about the pig yards and lots and the liberal use of disinfectants.” Economical Feed Barn. Here is a convenient and economical feed barn. Above the triangular hopper, which extends the length of the building, is a floor with traps, through which feed can be placed in the hopper and evenly distributed throughput its length. There is a door, closed in the cut, by means of which the hopper can be fed from the wagon. The hopper opens into a trough, from which the cattle feed as the grain descends. The

projecting roof affords all the protection needed for cattle in southern latitudes. For cotton seed the throat of the hopper should be six inches wide, with three inches between the opening and bottom of trough. For corn or oats a three-inch strip can be placed centrally under the throat to prevent too free flow of grain. The Inclined walls of the hopper should be supported at Intervals with 2 by 4 pieces extending from trough to rafters. Smaller Farms. We believe that no small part of our farmers are “land poor," not In the sense that the term is often used, that they have much land that does not produce enough to pay the taxes and interest on the value, though some of them are even that badly off, but many have much more land than they can cultivate as it should be, and more than they can keep up neat to its proper productive condition. They may use most of it in some way, and think they get an lueome from it, but a large share of those who really make money at farming make it upon but a small part of the farm. A few acres of meadow near the barns, the orchard and the garden are profitable. For the rest, if they solu it or rented it to some one who would put fertilizer and labor on it and produce as much on one acre as is now produced on three, It would be more profitable to the present owner, and to the buyer or renter. More small farms, more Intensive farming, and closer looking after the best possible results from small acres are what we need.—American Cultivator. Hessian Fly Solved. The Hessian fly problem has been solved, according to newspaper reports. A farmer In the central part of Missouri, thinks he has discovered how to keep the fly out of his wheat at a moderate expense. Just as wheat was coming up last fall, be scattered common salt over half a field, leaving the other half without any. He used about a bushel of salt to the acre. He says it worked like a charm. The part of the field salted has a good stand of wheat, entirely free from fly, while the other half is badly damaged. Another man says he prevented damage from fly by sowing a barrel of air slacked lime on fifteen acres as soon as the wheat came up, repeating the process at intervals of a few days. Blanching Celery. In the market garden all sorts of schemes have to be followed to save labor In blanching the plant—the art of removing the natural bitter quality. At times the plants are set close together so as to partially shade one another, and finally boards are set upright against the plant In the rows. At other times albino varieties are employed that seem blanched because they, develop no green or chlorophyllous matter in their structure. But the bitter taste remains. To have good celery the process of earthing up must be continuous. It requires a vwy rich soil, and if plenty of water can be given so much the better, says Meehan’s Mohthly. Border Leicester Ram.

Three-Shear. Bred by and the property of Matthew Templeton, Sandyknowe, Kelso, Scotland. First at the Edinburgh show and champion at.Galashiels this year.

PEN OF THREE WYANDOTTES. Eggs laid in year, 472; food consumed, $2.02; chicks reared, 31.

LABOR-SAVING FEED BARN.