Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1901 — AGRICULTURAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AGRICULTURAL

Home-Made Milk Cooler, On every dairy farm, large or small, there should be some arrangement made for cooling the milk. The illustration shows a home-made milk cooler which has been in operation on a large dairy farm for several years. The size can be varied according to circumstances. A shows the little box In which the ice is placed. This is hinged at the end so that the cover can be thrown entirely back and not Interfere In any way with the person who is putting in the ice, B shows the height in the box to which the water can go before it reaches the overflow pipe which goes out of the box Into a trough, shown at C, and thence is carried to any point desired. This overflow pipe is a piece of rubber hose. The larger box in which the cans of milk are set has a cover on either side

of the Ice chest, these covers being raised and thrown back against the ice chest when open. The cans of milk are placed in this large box in the water. — Indianapolis News. For Destroying Grasshoppers. By all odds the best method for destroying grasshoppers after they become half grown is the use of the “hopper dozer,” or kerosene pan, which Is shown herewith. This Is made of stovepipe Iron by turning up the sides and ends about four inches so as to make a long, flat pan about four inches in depth. This is then mounted on runners varying in height according to requirements. On the frame back of the pan is stretched a piece of cloth to prevent the Insects from jumping over the pan. When ready to begin work, the pan is partially filled with water, and some coal oil is added. If the ground is level, no crosspieces are necessary, but If the pan is to be used on sloping ground it should be made as indicated in the illustration to prevent the oil and water from running to one end. The height of the runners will necessarily vary from two to eight or ten inches, according to the crop to be protected and the age of the insects to be captured. .The machine may be of any length desired up te sixteen or eighteen feet. If small, it can be drawn by hand, but when larger a horse or two is desirable. When full, the insects can be removed, a little

more oil added and the machine start 1 ed afresh. In this way a number of bushels of hoppers can be captured and destroyed in a single day. The cost or running this machine Is trifling and the remedy very effectual. Nebraska Farmer. Filling the Bilo. It used to be thought that rapid filling of the silo was all important. It must be filled so fast that no layer of fodder could wilt before it was covered with another, and thus the fermentation beginning at the bottom must gradually work up through the mass until it reached the surface, where oxidization or rotting began, winch again worked downward until the decayed matter on the surface prevented any more air from going down. Naturally we accepted this'ldea, as It was sent out by learned chemists and scientific men, but opinions have changed since those days in the light of positive facts. The farmers who have not been able to fill their silos as rapidly as they wished to, or haTe been obliged to wait for help, for weather or for some later field to attain maturity, or those who from lack of facilities for rapid handling have been obliged to fill slowly, have found that their ensilage was In no way inferior to that which was all pat In practically at one time, or without pause excepting for the night’s rest. And some have learned that It does not injure it If a part of the water in it dries out before it is cut. The moisture is enough unless the fodder

has become dry before cutting by reason of being overripe, suffering from drought, or being frost-bitten. Either of these causes may make fodder so dry that it will be benefited by a wetting before it is pressed into the silo. — New England Homestead. The Colorado Beetle. If those who desire to kill the beetles and slugs on their potato and tomato vines would mix their paris green with an equal amount of slaked lime, or one pound of It to two pounds of land plaster, and dust the vines with the mixture when they are a little damp from dew or rain, they would destroy the Insects better than they do by spraying with the paris green in water. The poison would not wash off as easily in a shower, and it would be easy to tell when it washed off, without waiting to learn it by seeing the vines half eaten up and no slugs killed. The lime or plaster would, like the lime in Bordeaux mixture, prevent injury to the foliage, and they are also supposed to have some effect in preventing blight." In the days before the Colorado beetle • came around almost every farmer used to put plaster on his pototo and squash vines, first to keep off the little striped squash or cucumber bug, next to prevent blight, and not least because it was supposed to attract moisture to the hill. Probably the fact was that it absorbed some of the ammonia that was escaping from the “shovelful of manure In the hill,” which most of them used for growing potatoes, and they used to talk about growing “a peck In a hill” then, but we never saw such a hill.

Alfalfa for Horses. Concerning the action- of alfalfa hay on horses, a farmer says in Breeder’s Gazette: For more than fifteen year* I have had experience in raising horses from birth to sale, from youth to age, on alfalfa pasture and hay, except maybe giving them some variety in winter, consisting of corn fodder and straw. All animals and man like a variety in diet. I feed no grain except to horses in harness, and my horses are noted for their size, strength and beauty. I sold two Percheron colts in March, 3 and 4 years ohl, weighing 1,700 and 1,800 pounds, that did not know the taste of grain. I have wintered horses from the city, as many as twenty-five at times, exclusively on alfalfa to the'perfect satisfaction of the owners. I have never noticed nor known any injurious effect from well-cured, good hay cut at first bloom. Feeding Half-Grown Chick*. The usual custom of turning young chicks on to the range to shift for tbpmselves as soon as they are large enough to leave their mother is not conducive to the best results. For chicks that are to form the layers in the late fall and winter this plan will do very well if they are grain-fed once a day. Chicks that are to go to market as soon as they are large enough will need a liberal quantity of cracked corn and wheat placed in a trough where they can get at it easily; do this every other day. The chicks will not over-eat for they will get enough exercise on the range to counterbalance any heavy feeding. The grains named, together with what the chicks will pick up on the range, will constitute nearly a perfect balanced ration.

Evolntion of the Apple. Apples are new in the economy of the world’s use and taste. At the beginning of the last century few varieties were known, and we can go back in history to a time when all apples were little, sour and puckery—crab apples and nothing else. The crab apple was and is in Its wildness nothing but a rosebush. Away back in time the wild rose, with its pretty blossoms that turn to little red balls, apple flavored, and the thorny crab had the same grandmother. General Farm Note*. Dig out the peach tree borers and jai the curculio. Bone is the thing to use on peacb trees every time, says one grower. If the sun is allowed to shine on tb« grindstone one side will wear fastei than the other. In orchards badly infested with cankerworm late spraying with some form of arsenic, which is most safely used in bordeaux mixture, may do good if tb« worm is still feeding. Cultivate the sweet potato ridges after rains to break the crust and keep the soil mellow. Making the ridge* narrow the last cultivation will cause them to mature early. A great deal depends upon how water Is put on. If you begin your Irrigation before it is very dry. you don’t need so much water, but if you let youi ground get very dry and then put on your water you need a great deal more of it Often on the farm, harvest or thrashing hands find it Impossible to. be at home for dinner, and it is a vexing problem how to haul dinner on the wagon without Jolting It into a mush. If the dinner bucket Is placed in a grain sack, and each end of the sack is hooked or fastened fa some way under the hay rigging, bo that the sack will hang loosely, swing back and forth, the dinner will Jar very little, though carried oa the wagon all the forenoon.

GOOD MILK COOLER.

A HOPPER DOZER.