Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1904 — AGRICULTURAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AGRICULTURAL

Unique Post Puller. Pulling posts by ordinary means is not an easy task, as any one who has tided it will admit, but ■when some simple device like that shown in the illustration is used, the work is much simplified. A frame about three feet high should be tuade of lumber four inches square; the frame should be about eighteen inches wide. Make a roller six inches in diameter and fasten to the upper part of the frame as shown and a chain should be bolted to it near one end as indicated. This chain should be about four feet long with a hook fastened to the free end. Near the other end of the roller bore two holes, as shown, about three inches apart and each hole one ar.d one-hal* Inches in diameter. To operate the device place it near the post, hook the chain around the post near the ground, then use two bars, one in each hole; turn the roller with these bars and the post will yield readily, and with

the use of but a small amount of strength upon the part of the operator. Any one who is handy with tools can easily-make this device, and it will pay for itself in a single season if many posts are to be pulled.—lndianapolis News. PaHaiUK of Saw and Ax. A United States Consul reports that In France trees are being felled by elec-tricity—-not struck by lightning, as in the old tinfe way—the jyork being done by a platinum wire made white hot with a current of electricity and used as a saw. A tree is cut down in one-eighth the time consumed by the ordinary methods of sawing or chopping. If trees “can be felled in this way their trunks can also be cut into logs and the logs into boards by a Blender wire instead of the cumbrous saw. Is the coining wood or lumber sawing machine or mill to be simply a portable engine running a dynamo to generate electricity to heat a wire that will go through tree or log eight times as fast as a saw? Quite likely. Electricity is yet an undeveloped infant; what will it not do when fully matured?

Buying Stock Swine. Never buy an animal simply because he has a pedigree, and because be is on sale at a low price. Pedigree alone does not constitute merit, for there are animals with pedigrees a foot tong, which would ruin any herd into which they were introduced. The next class —the farmer’s pig—is that which is not good enough for the breeder of high-class stock; this animal may be a bit coarse, and not up to standards, but he is a good growthy or a prolific sort, which the pork producer will be glad to have. The next kind Includes the culls, runts and inferior specimens, which should be turned into butcher’s meat as soon ns possible; under no circumstances whatever should they be used as breeders. American Farming. An Illinois farmer says: Comparing the composite picture of the American farmer at the threshold of KXM with his likeness in 1880, there Is good ground for estimating his present value as double that of fifteen years ago. Potentially he Is the coining man. AU roads leading to the farm era being more and more traveled. Intercourse promotes development and the farmer Is demanding a larger share In the life of the nation. In response to this demand a rising tide, of effort and accomplishment, Is seen on every hand. To BreakJUpßittcrs. The means of preventing a hen from dttlng seems like a very humble problem to occupy the throbbing brain of an inventor, but the matter has been 'recently attacked by a genius of British Honduras, who is so sure that he has found a solution of this mighty matter that he has gone to the trouble of taking out patent'papers in this and other countries. * The apparatus consists merely of a Hoop of wire adapted to fasten to her |tag and encircle the limb in such a

manner that the fowl’s freedom of foot is not interfered with in her ordinary rambles about the barnyard in search of food, but the. moment she tuples to locate herself on a nest she finds a yawning chasm bet-ween them. She may hover around and over the nest, but it refuses to receive her rotund form. This is because the wire prevents her (from bending her leg, as is necessary to assume the sitting posture. It is said that after repeated efforts to find a hosf»it#.b!e nest she gives up her task and forgets her dream cf maternity. •

Silage Fatal to Horses. I Corn silage is a natural food I milking cows and growing cattle.] is useful in the ration of fattening I mals. It may be fed to horses J probable advantage, but it must! fed with extreme caution. I If fed in regular amounts not! ceeding ten to fifteen pounds per I many experiences have been entl satisfactory. If fed in unlinl amounts, and especially if the sa has been poorly made or has uil gone some further degeneration, itfl proved deadly in its effects. Last I ter in Minnesota a man came to isl the Farmers’ Institute with a sori ful tale. He had filled his silo I frozen corn and there was mold oil silage. He had no hay. His h<l had been gorged with silage, havlnl other feed. They ate a bushel or 1 a day. They gained in flesh for atl Then they began mysteriously to J en and die. Paralysis of the thl was one symptom. No remedy he] them. All died, I think, and he I a poor man, in debt tor his farml This winter a friend fed sill What they rejected was thrown I in a yard in a rack. From this J cows gleaned. One day eight hoi running in the yard ate all they w| ed of this half-spoiled silage. All d 'The symptoms were peculiar, incl Ing nervous spasms, and one vetq arlan pronounced the disease hyl phobia. It may possibly have bl but I fear the silage alone was resa sible. | This need not deter any one fl building silos. There is abundant] for silage in the dairy barn, tire cd yard, the sheep-pens, even in the si] pens. Let the horses have dry fol or silage in small amount.?. —Breed Gazette. ] Home-Grown Alfalfa Seed. I Reports from Michigan fan] on plats seeded to alfalfa show I folly of using seed imported from! rope, rather than the home gr] seed. The Imported seed has a I vitality and does not catch so J nnd also has a lower per cent of I urination. While these two points! enough to enable the farmer to I that the home-grown seed is del the best, there is erst? more sera objection to the imported seed. ll of it is found to contain a large amd of weed seed, the most troubles] ones being dodder and buckthorn] One man invested something ov] hundred dollars in European seed,] result from which was almost absd failure; although different >lats| sown in varying ways, some will nurse crop, others without. Nelghl who used the home-grown seed good results, as the past season been an especially favorable one to a good catch.

Good Milking Stool. John Jackson, in the Epitonßfi writes: "I have used a milking sBB made as described iu the illustraß|| for five years. The seat board, aB made of a two inch plank nine ini-HH

wide and fourteen inches long. '■E stool board, B, is two inches thick BE nine Inches broad nnd long and HE round. A three-eighth inch bolt, put through the middle, the head siß| and the nut left off so the seat willlg volve. The seat Is eleven inches A hoop Is fastened with staples on ■■ upright board. B, to hold the at a convenient height from the its upper rim.” Good Two-Year-Old Milker. ‘i The Jersey Bulletin mentiontßE 2-year-old Jw.sey heifer which gBE 204 pounds of milk in seven making over fourteen pounds of lß| ♦er, "with the temperature 30 on the bad side (below) zero.” could that have been? Wc saw abeH the same thing accomplished In IlooiH herd, at Ixiwell, Mass., but the cotH were housed In comfortable barns. B When Scalding Plga. When scalding pigs put three haoß fuls of pitch in the water and a handful in each succeeding heat. Little or no shaving of the pig is required. Smoke the meat three days, having a very hot fire the first day and ualng two pounds of sulphur in the fire the Tnst two days. Neither flies nor mice will touch the meat Machinery of no kind should be allowed to remain exposed to the weather any mon than is necessary.

HOME-MADE POST PULLER.

MILKING STOOL.