Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1901 — FARM AND GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM AND GARDEN

Value of Irrigation. The universal use of irrigation in the West has practically revolutionized farm values in many regions. These methods of supplying the crops with water are many, but they all show an amotmt of adaptation to conditions that proves the existence of Yankee genius here yet. There are more varieties of windmills for pumping up water than one could describe in a week. These windmills are not expensive affairs, but in most cases are built of ordinary articles picked up on the farm or in sec-ond-hand shops. They perform the work required of them satisfactorily, and that is all one can ask of them. The construction of a good working windmill on any farm, and a pumping attachment, with irrigation canals and reservoir, adds a hundred or two per cent to the value of a farm in a region where summer droughts are heavy drawbacks to farming. With a little extra work during the winter season it is an easy matter to make such improvements on almost any farm. The system can be enlarged and extended season by season, and the farm gradually enhanced in value. A farm that has a fair home-made irrigation plant is practically independent of the weather. The farmer is then sure of his crop no matter how hot or dry the season may prove. The great benefit derived from an irrigation plant is so apparent that it seems strange that so tew are in existence. It is not always necessary to build a windmill for Irrigation, for there are often natural advantages which any farmer can avail himself of. When brooks flow through farms they furnish in the winter and spring seasons an abundance of water, but when summer advances they often dry up and prove of no earthly good. The question of importance is how can such a stream be converted into use for irrigating the plants. It would not be so difficult if a reservoir was dug and built on the farm, so that the water could be stored. Such a reservoir could easily be increased in size each year, and with the water stored in it, what would prevent digging ditches to carry the water to the fields when needed? Some will say that such work represents an immense amount of labor; but if the farmer intends to live permanently on his farm, will it not pay Tiim to do a little toward the improvement each year, even though it may take ten years to complete the job? He can rest assured that he is increasing the value of his farm fully 10 per cent every year, a fact which he will realize when he comes to sell it—Professor James S. Doty, New York.

Poultry House for Large Chicks. When the chicks are about one-quar-ter grown and have left the mother hen they should be provided with some sort of a shelter for night use and for use on stormy days. A coop for these chicks may be built for very little money. One side of the coop is formed by the side of a building or a fence, and at the lower end comes within two inches of the ground. The roof of rough boards is covered with tarred or waterproof paper. An opening is cut in one side next to the fence or wall. Inside, roosts are arranged, and in one corner is placed a dust bath. The roosts will have to be put in before the roof is put on, as the house Is not designed

in any way so that one can even reach the inside except through the small hole provided for the entrance of the chicks. Protect the Farm Well. Tests made at experiment stations show that water from farm wells is frequently contaminated with some impurity drawn from surrounding stables, pens, etc., and a lack of drainage to carry off surface water. Wash and dishwater, both filled with animal matter, Is thrown around the house, year In and out, until the ground is alive with the poison, which eventually finds Its way Into the well. The fields are tiled to produce healthy and abundant crop life, but seldom Is a tile or ditch put down around the bouse to protect the well. When the water begins to run low In the well that Is not driven below rock. Is the time to begin to boll it for drinking purposes. Heat of water or sun destroys the typhoid bacillus. Enough water should be boiled at a time to allow It to stand several hours before drinking. It Is the heat driving the air out of it makes it so sickening to taste. In a few hours the air will again get into U and restore the taste. Put it in jugs, and set the Jugs upon the cellar floor, or In a cave prepared tor this purpose. If you have ice, put it around the vessels, but never in them. There are high and specialized forms of life that ice will not kill, and some of the lower

forms it preserves in all force, It seems. The contents of slop bowls from the room of the patient sick with typhoid had, if the sun is shining hot, better sty far be thrown upon the ground than buried. A log heap is the proper disinfectant in these cases, kept burning night and day as long as there is anything from the sick room to throw into it.—lndianapolis News.

Peach Yellows. Occasionally we see statements from some one that the peach yellows is not at all a contagious disease, and that there is nothing gained by removing trees in which it has appeared. Some State Legislatures have enacted laws making such destruction of trees compulsory on their owners, while in other States there has been so much opposition to such laws that they could not be passed. The best authorities are agreed, so far as we have seen, that it is contagious. We remember that a (few years ago, Mr. J. H. Hale, the largest peach grower in Connecticut and in Georgia, said to the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture that in 1890 he found one affected tree in an orchard and he rooted it out. The next year he* had to take out the four trees next to where it stood, and the next year he had about forty to take out. Possibly if he had taken the affected tree and four next to it, as soon as found, it might not have spread to the other forty. If it shoWs on one tree, there are many chances, that- it has reached others near that one, though it may not harve reached a stage where It can be detected even by close observation.—American Cultivator.,

Four Horse Evener. A correspondent sends to lowa Homestead a sketch of a four-horse evener for a binder which, he says, Is in almost universal use in his section of the country. Take a common evener off from your disk, buy a 15cent pulley and about ten feet of stout rope or chain, which will cover all the expense. Take a piece of 2 by 6 and bolt on tongue

with one bolt where the evener goes to serve as prop for the evener, pass the rope through the pulley and tie on each end of the evener. This gives free play to both sides of the evener. There Is no side draft, but put the heaviest team on the outside. This device can be used on either a right or left hand binder and gives perfect satisfaction. The illustration is self explanatory. There should also be a clevis from the center of the evener to fasten Jhe evener to the outer end of the prop.

Imperfect 1 lum Hlos,om». Fruit growers have met with a difficulty in the successful cultivation of the native plum in the fact that some varieties are self-sterile; that Is, they do not fertilize themselves. Isolated trees and large orchards of Wild Goose and Miner have proved shy bearerg, while when planted intermingled with other varieties blooming at the same time and furnishing an abundance of pollen they have borne many crops. Hence it is Important to determine the most suitable list of varieties for an orchard so as to insure the most perfect pollenation of all the blossoms. Newman is considered a good pollenizer for Wild Goose? while De Soto, Wolf, and Forest Garden are regarded as good fertilizers for Miner. Isolated trees of the self-sterile varieties may be made fruitful by top grafting some of the limbs with suitable varieties, or by planting trees of these sorts adjacent. Mixed planting of self-fertile and important varieties In hedge-like rovrs or In alternate row’s Is now advocated and practiced by our best growers. Some growers prefer to confine their choice of varieties to those that are self-sterile. —Farmer’s Review’.

Indigestion in Horse*. It is difficult to give causes of indigestion in horses, for it may come from improper water, as from improper foods, although the latter are usually at the bottom of the trouble. A proper variety in the foods will do much to keep the digestive organs in good condition, particularly if In the variety there Is considerable green food of a succulent nature, as most root crops are. When Indigestion is caused by Improper water, it is usually the case that the water Is foul In some way, although very hard water often produces indigestion, or, what is worse, stone In the kidney or bladder, the latter being a disease quite common among horses In districts where the water is hard. If the food Is of the proper kind and hard water is being used, attention should l>e given it before a valuable animal Is lost. If possible, give rain water, but If this is not convenient, add a small quantity of caustic potash to the hard water, which will materially Improve it. Dairy Thermometers. A good dairy thermometer costs less than sl, and tons of butter go Into the grease vats every year because thousands of farmers’ wives do not use a thermometer In churning. A noted dairy Instructor once told the writer that he firmly believed that the average prlceof all the butter sold in the United States could be Increased at least 2 cents per pound In two years if the thermometer was used at every churning and the cream churned at the proper temperature. -*•Land and a LI Ying.

GOOD POULTRY HOUSE.

A FOUR HORSE EVENER.