Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1905 — FARM AND GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM AND GARDEN

Dig Out borers In the peach trees with a wire. With a plow throw up the earth to the potato drill, and keep cultivating. Watch for insect pests on the shade trees, and attack the elm beetle with arsenate of lead. The butter and egg crop of lowa last year sold for more money than the entire corn crop of the State. Brahmas and Cochins are good hatchers, but their clumsiness breaks a good many eggs and kills quite a number of chicks. i The Wisconsin free library commission runs a book wagon, a library on wheels, to provide reading for residents of rural districts. The Japanese and Chinese pinks are showy flowers, three inches across, with a curious mixture of colors. They will stand cold weather, but not wet. In general, roses are pruned too severely, because the owners are following rules laid down for the English climate, and for people whose first object is to exhibit. Bowel trouble that carries off many chicks when one or two weeks old may be often corrected by taking away their drinking water and giving scalded milk instead. When corn is five inches high, cultivate it both ways. Cultivate the hills and make the ground loose every three weeks and keep the weeds out. In the last hoeing in June sow turnip seed to gather In the fall. A New York man counted the apple maggots in one square foot in his orchard, and estimated that there were 12,000 worms under one big tree. He immediately Invested In Bordeaux mixture and a big sprayer. If there is any place where gingerbread and fancy work Is expensive It is about a hen-hoiise. Square corners and straight, plain walls give less homing for vermin and less work in keeping clean than does “artistic” display.

The moonflower, or evening glory, has large, trumpet-shaped, white flowers, which open during twilight and sometimes last until noon of the following day. They usually expand so fast you can see them move, a bud often becoming a flower within a minute. A new kind of a swindle has been in operation at Waterloo, lowa. A woman drove through the country, collecting the combings of hair from farmers’ wives to be made into switches, and taking a few dozen eggs for her fee. The nalr and eggs are sold at good prices and the woman disappears. Experiment station bulletin No. 126, on “Hand-Fed Calves,” has just been issued by the Kansas State Agricultural College experiment station. It treats in a thoroughly practical manner of most of the diflicultles to be contended with by farmers who desire to make butter or sell milk or cream, and at the same time produce strong, profitable calves. This bulletin gives the results of experimentation at the State Agricultural College, extending over several years, and shows how the above-mentioned results may be secured. It may be obtained free from the agricultural experiment station, Manhattan, Kan. Chickens in the Garden. -k Under some conditions chickens may be permitted to have the run of the vegetable garden and will do but little harm until they are half grown. They will scratch more or less, but after the plants are well started the scratching will do little harm. The chicks will consume vast quantities of insects and save many plants that would otherwise be eaten by the Insects. It is not a good plan, however, to turn chicks into the vegetable garden unless they are fed regular rations, and also have an opportunity to get green food in other places, for they will probably tear at the plants and destroy more or less. , If one wjll watch the chicks it is entirely safe to give them an hour or more dally in the vegetable garden. In that time they will hunt out and eat more insects titan one could gather in half a day. Turn them in after they have had the morning feed, and they will do little or no barm. tine Breeding. Line breeding is another term for Inbreeding, not haphazard, but scientific inbreeding, says D. J. Coyne, Jr., in Commercial Poultry. For example, a breeder etarta with a trio or pen of unrelated or distantly related birds. The next season be must not mate their progeny alone, for that would be dangerous Inbreeding—brothers ana slaters—and the stotk la all young. Experience has taught us that such a mating produces Infertile eggs and yoang stock lacking in vitality. The proper matings are to mate the cock bird to bls pullets and the best cockoral to the hens, and so on year after

year the birds are mated, young te old and old to young, without the in* troductlon of strange blood, the object being to avoid mating brothers and sisters, birds too closely related or Immature birds. To Kill Coddling Moth. William H. Folck, of the University of California, recommends arsenate of lead as a remedy for the coddling moth Instead of parls green, which is particularly unsuited for use on the Pacific coast, because of the climate. Prof. Folck has estimated that conscientious work with lead arsenate may be expected to yield a control in the neighborhood of 95 to 98 per cent The chemical will cost nearly twice aa much as parls green for the same orchards, but even with this added expense, he declares that the spraying will prove a profitable Investment There have been figured out nine necessary sprayings during the season, including combinations of overshot undershot and inside sprayings. The cost of material and labor per tree has been estimated at 35 cents as the outside figure, and Prof. Folck says that, even at this high price, it will amount to not more than half the net returns on a box of sound apples. High Butter Average. We notice in a dairy exchange a statement to the effect that the average production of butter per cow in Holland last year was 400 pounds. I’he statement may be correct and it may not. We cannot help feeling that it is a little too high to figure as an average. The average production oj butter by the cows of any country Is gem* erally very far below a good average. Cows that will produce butter-fat to make 400 pounds of butter per year are very scarce in this country, and we assume they are somewhat scarce in every country. There is no doubt that the butter average will some day be brought up to that point. It is a standard worth working for, and the nation that can attain it will be rich. By dropping out the poor cows and getting bettgr ones constantly, the average will in time be brought up to a point where dairying will be profitable both for the individual dairyman and for the nation. As the world advances in civilization more products of the dairy cow will be used. The demand for cream is greatly on the Increase in our Western cities and the dairymen that have a good cream trade find it far more profitable to sell their butter fat in that way than in any other. This is an inducement to raise the standard of production. The man that gets down to the point of finding out what the average production of his dairy cows is takes the first steps to increase that average. He can mark this cow and that cow for the slaughter as soon as her milk yield reaches the point in its decline where cost and receipts are approximately the same. There are good cows being slaughtered annuaUy and these should be saved and added to our dairy herds. Malching Trees with Grass. In some parts of the country orchardists are following the practice of leaving the orchard in sod and mulching with the grass that grows on the sod. That is, If the sod be blue grass the grass is allowed to grow to a certain height, say to a foot, and is then cut and allowed to He under the trees and rot or dry up, as the case may be. The Idea of the orchardlst is to keep all the fertility In the soil except what the fruit takes out. We fall to see the wisdom of following this course. If the orchard is left In sod and the grass mowed why not take the grass off and feed It to stock and thus get the good of the carbon that is in It. There are certain parts of plants that do not get back into ths soil at all. The grass is worth mere to feed than for manure. If the grass were made Into hay and the hay sold the price realized would bring back to the orchard a much greater bulk than would the rotting of the grass. We have seen timothy growing in orchards, and within a mile timothy hay was selling for sl2 a ton. Barnyard manure could be bought within the same distance at a dollar a load, delivered. The yield of timothy in the orchard was at least a ton to the acre. The farmer had bis help, which worked the year round, and the making and marketing of the bay would cost no more than if It were not marketed. In this case the farmer mowed his orchard, made the timothy into hay, fed it to his cows and put the manure back on hla land. Another year he did the same with the clover that waa growing on the same orchard area. We are a little doubtful about the expediency of mowing land around the trees and letting the grass rot In some cases, too, we have seen trees so far apart that the grass, instead of rotting, would dry up and go into the air In large part during the hot days of summer. If there is any good reason for following the practice of mulching with grass, as it is called, we would like to beer from some at our readers on the matter.