Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1906 — FARM AND GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM AND GARDEN

A Cheap silo, like. anything else that Is cheap, isFdear price T" Try watering the horses In the morning before feeding. This will often prevent colic, It Is a notable fact that men whose word is aA good as their note keep it good by keeping their names off of notes. The opinion of some orchard owners is that it will not do to cultivate peach trees after they are four years old, if it is expected to get finely coloied fruit. An old alfalfa grower says: “Where the worms abound, alfalfa is sure.” The land must U* dry. the soil mu-st be »weet and full of organic matter for best results with alfalfa. The Institute worker who can give (without the use of percentages) his own experience on his own farm will be listened to most attentively. It is not the interesting talker at an institute that educates, but the instructive one who talks along practical lines.—__ It is proper use to put an axe to when one cuts down old, defunct willow hedges continuous to farm land. Sueh things can not be said to be a thing of beauty, nor may they lie considered beneficial. They impede the growth of crops and are better out of existence. Give the farm implement a "square deal" and don’t throw it away until it is beyond repairing. Many machines are thrown away that could be repaired so as to do good work.Onsome farms so much is Invested in machinery that it is difficult to make a profit on theinvestment. A supply of lime is absolutely necessary for the hens and there is no better way to get’this than pounded oyster shells. Bones, pounded tine, so as to have no long splinters, may also be used, or fine gravel which contains limestone. Attention to these things is what makes poultry pay in winter. When a gall is noticed, there is something wrong with the saddle or harness, and no remedy will tie available until the cause of the gall is removed. An examination of the harness should be made whenever the horse is brought up from work at night, and it should be kept in good condition, or the horse will suffer. All kinds of horses are high now. No one should buy a horse unless it is actually needed. When buy’ng it pays to get the best. For am investment Fn horses it would be good business management to wait a while until something good can be bought for less money. A pair of good draft mares will pay out at almost any reasonable price.

It has been frequently pointed ont to the feeder that a perieet ration may sometimes be unpalatable, in which case It cannot produce tnat good which •will come from a ration more palatable. If the animal does not like the taste of any ration it will not get good from it, for it will not eat sufficient of it. It is, that the ration bave paiatability as well as balanced elements.

Where corn has been laid by with a good shovel plow the ridges in the corn rows are high. In putting In spring grain there should be some reduction of these ridges or the stand will be “streaked." The grain when it comes up looks very much like the stripes of Old Qlory. It Is better to run the disk over a field of this kind before seeding to oats or spring wheat. If not reduced properly these ridges will interfere in harvesting.

Milk, like many other things, that can be extremely good, can n’so be extremely bad. Milk, as it comes from the udder of a healthy, well cared-for cow. is as pure as spring water from the depth of the earth, hut the moment It coines In contact with the air and the utensils in which it is handled, it becomes the most favorable place for the development of tluusands of minute organisms known as bacteria, and under favorable conjltious these will grow and multiply until one drop of milk may contain as many as a million. which may not onlv cost the lives of the calves to which it is fed. Out of the children of Cntr homes.

Cultivation* of Cabbaic**. Market gardeners often-raise earlier snd larger cabbages than are usually found in even our best private garden*. One reasvn of this Is probably due to the fact that the market gardeners grow cabbages on a large scale, and use the horse hoe or between the rows of growing cabbages. This deep and thorough cu)tlvat.i,jjn not on k v keeps the land free from weeds, but it also prunes the roots and checks the growth of the cabbages sot; a abort time, though not for long. The roots which are pruned throw out numerous small fibers, which feed on a rich surface soil rather than on the poorer subsoil. This check to the growth of the cabbages favors early maturity. But

it should not be forgotten that it is incHspehSabTe to success that the land for early cabbages be very rich, and the more nne cultivates them the better.

Car* of Old Orchards, The man who starts out With a young and vigorous orchard is quite likely to give it reasonably good care, for he believes that, in .time, It will bring him good returns. On the other hand, the man with an old orchard, that is, an adult orchard, so to speak, generally believes that its days of usefulness are rover and gives it little or no care and, as a result, it amounts to but little. Experienced orchardlsts who have gone into the matter extensively think that The^orchard - wTdch well worth earing for and many of them have made them pay handsomely by the simple process of cultivatioji of the soil, pruning and spraying the trees.

Easily Made Dark Nesi. One of the best nest arrangements known Is readily made by having a box of sufficient depth so that it can be stood on its end with one board removed on one side and the top fastened to the wall. This box is set on the floor, with the face to the wall and the nesting material put inside on *tfie floor. First line the box witk building paper to keep the light out of the cracks. The one board removed on the one side, next to the wall, will leave a sufficient opening for t-he hen to enter, and : then a hinged cover may be made on top so that the eggs may be gathered and the nesting material renewed withont difficulty. -Henn will hiy more eggs if the nests are dark than when they are light. ' ■

Average Dolly Gain of I’ls'MThe average daily gain of some of the pigs exhibited at the last Smithfield show in England is given by a correspondent of the Country Gentleman. The best gain accorded was that of a pair of cross Yorkshire and Berkshire pigs aged 261 days, with a weight of 445 pounds each ; which, I think, works out a dally gain since birth of 1.70 pounds. The next highest is that of a large white pig 308 days old, which weighed 505 pounds, or a daily Increase of 1.67 pounds. The of crossbreds, which were in nearly every case large or middle white Yorkshires and Berkshire*, appear to have made the best daily gain, of nearly 1.40 pounds per day; then came the large Yorkshires with 1.30 pounds, the Berkshires 1.24 pounds, and In Tamworths (of which there were only four pens, one of these a pen under nine months old which showed a gain of 1.08 pounds only) came next, with a daily gain of 1.22 pounds.

Don’t Mix the Breeds. If there is one mistake more likely to be made than another by the novice in poultry raising it is the tendency to keep several breeds. The expert can do this with more or less profit because he understands how to keep them separated or, if he wishes to cross them, understands this as well. The novice, on the other hand, is too often inclined to experiment. lie thinks the crossing of two certain breeds ought to give him the finest fowl on earth and keeps at it until the blood is pretty well mixed, and finds, to his dismay, that the cross is not so good as the poorest of the clean breeds. Again he tries Rocks one year and then becomes enamored of the Wyandottes and gets a few; the next year the Leghorn appeals to him and so on until he has the time of his life keeping them separated or, as In the first case, becomes involved In a hopeless mixture. Look well into the subject and ascertain as nearly as possible which breed meets the requirements, then get that breed and stick to It through thick and thin until you prove it valuable or worthless.

Quantity of Manure to the Acre. Repeated experiment has proved that the practice of applying large quantities of manure to the acre on a limited space, making it necessary to leave much of the land unmanured, does not pay. Many farmers never apply less than twenty tins of stable manure to the acre, saying that they prefer to do well what they do and let the remainder of the land take its chances. Twenty tons of manure on oije acre, plowed under for a eq*ring crop, makes the soli richer for two years—nb doubt about that —but it will not improve the productive power of a farm nearly so much as the same amount of manure used as a top dressing on three acres, provided clover is grown with this supply of plant fowl. It Is poor farming to keep up a few acres hear the barn with the entire supply of stable fertilizer and let thin fields, fall to make profitable crops. Mamiral crops are the chief dependence on a majority of farms, or should be, and enough farm manure should be used to assist thin soils wherever found.* so that all fields may increase their supply of vegetable matter , tad be permanently, improved, and then any additional supply can ba safely used to enrich the pet field from which one wants a banner crop.— Agricultural Bpltomlst