Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1906 — FARM AND GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM AND GARDEN

Long and Aard pulling makes windbroken horses. The corn grower seldom whines berause the weather is too hot; The lambs should be put in the feed lots ijo that they can be sent to market early. In buying a cow try to buy the cow that the seller wants to keep. She is the good cow; Whenever the swinging hoe is made as popular as the swinging motion of a baseball bat, then boys can’t be kept from the garden. Egg shells furnish material for new shells. Do not feed them, though, unless finely pulverized, for there is danger of teaching the heus.to.cat eggs. It never pays to be a next year farmer, and yet it pays as well as it does to be a last year’s farmer. Don’t ptit off any farming for tomorrow that, can be done today. Sometimes the things we do the best are not worth doing at all. One of the hardest things we often do seems most easy. It is in shaking hands with trouble before we meet It. Many farmers are thwarting the rat nuisance by placing concrete foundations’under their cribs aifd granarjesz The expense is a little more iff the beginning, but there Is a saving in the long run. Whenever a man does any tiling that he knows to be radically wroiigliewbiiders what he has against himself that leads him to do such a thing. We are constantly getting into trouble in this manner. The heavily padded collar Is not the thing for hot weather. It is all right in ccld weather when heavy drawing is at hand, but when warm weather comes there should be a different collar arrangement.

Have you ever tried having summer jollara for horses iu summer and winter collars for winter? It is a good plan and leads to fewer sore shoulders. Horses’ sfioulders are not the same shape or size in winter that they are iu summer. Some of the very accurate writers are given a pain because western farmem farmers insist on calling it dehorning. The correct writer says it is “dishorning.” Whatever it is, it means removing the horns, and most farmers understand what that is. The chicks should have a varied ration as well ns the older fowls. It helps digestion nnd undoubtedly they enjoy the change. It has been said that a bill of fare Is ns necessary in the poultry yard as in our own household, for best results, and it certainly is true. Separate sheep and cows. They don’t do well together. 'The cows are particularly sensitive about the places In the pasture where the 'sheep have trampled tlie grqss down and left their iroppings. Many farmers pasture their cows and sheep together, but they always do It at a loss. The dairy ration should be palatable. It should be nutritious. It should be digestible, abundant and as inexpensive as possible after tbe other essentials are secured. But we should never lose sight of the fact that no ration is ever good enough or cheap enough to coax a profit out of a worthless cow. One cannot be too good to one's horse when it comes to making stalls. Naturally one would think that the wider the stall tlie more comfortable the horse would be. But the wider stall may be dangerous after all. The horse is more apt to try to roll iu a wide stall, and is more in danger es getting fast than he would lie in a narrow* stall. A medium width is best. Wentlirr Protection for Stock. All kinds of farm stock should be protected from storms, even in summer. They should be brought home from the fields and put under shelter until the storm subsides. This will be very little trouble, as they will readily do so, they requiring but a short time to understand |hat they are better off Ly so doing. . Knit for Pooltrr. Salt Is ns essential for poultry as Tor humans or antmais, tint It Timor wlte to feed it by itself. Tlie better way is to use It to season the food whenever that can be done. The warm mash In the winter, whether fed morning or night, gives one an opportunity to supply Bevern) condiments which could not be so readily given to tbe fowls In any other wijr, Rape for Fall Pasture. The merit of rape as a fall pasture crop for hogs depends entirely ou Its growing ehanees Itefore killing frosts occur. Give It fifty days of growing weather and . rape abundantly repays (ur the labor and total cost Where

either hogs, sheep, or calves are to ba grazed at this season. This is distinctly a catch crop, Planted In succession, beginning early in the season, rape yields a succession of crops truly remarkable for their abundance of green feed. Dig Out the Milk Pail. Of course everybody washes their piilk pails and cans and but not everyone digs out the deposit that forms in the corners and under the overhanging rims. Yet these deposits contain an assortment of the germs that have grown in the previous batches of milk. They are like chunks of yeast ami start up souring in the milk In the same way that yeast makes bread ferment. Even though the germs are scalded to death new ones soon fall on. the deposit and then conditions areas’ bad as ever. Cleanliness of every hidden corner is the only condition that is safe. Shoes Stop Cows Jumping. Put horseshoe on cow’s front foot, advises a Maine man, who says that this Is a sure cure, as no cow can jump unless she can spread the hoofs in jumping. Others have prevented this bad habit by simply giving cow an extra feed of hay just before turning out of-barn, as very few cows will jump or tear down fence if perfectly contented; they are simply looking for more to eat Possibly they have asked for more food, but often we are: to<L. dumb or careless to understand them. A sure cure for. tearing fences is take -a- sharp awl, punch a small hole through nose and insert a ring. Then bore small hole in each horn, take piece of small wire; make fast to ring on one side; run through both horns, and secure wire to other side. Thus the cow can eat all right, but cannot use her horns. Don’t dishorn a good cow. Iler horns are there for a wise purpose, and I believe it is a sih to dishorn a full-grown cow, better stop the horn when a week old. lac Nature's Pnmpsu Watering an orchard is a much larger operation than the average orchardist cares to undertake, unless one has a system of piping attached to an adequate water source. And yet, we may water the trees, either old or young, or the vegetables, by means of countless little invisible pumps that we niay put In operation with the plow and the harrow. There is always moisture in the earth, and far beneath the surface it Is full of water and this water has a tendency to rise to the surface all the time and to dampen things at the top. But, when there is a drought, and the surface becomes baked and hard, the rising process is greatly retarded, if not entirely suspended, and then it is that vegetation and trees suffer—the many little pumps are clogged and fail to work, for there is nothing to climb and nothing to Invite the expansion of the water from below, up near the surface. But, If we are timely ,and apply the plow, and can turn and loosen the earth on top, and will then occasionally pass the harrow through it, we may keep all the air and water cells open in the top soil, and the moisture will then come up again. How n Kniinan Cure* Alfalfa. An Interesting method of curing alfalfa hay is that used by Hon. J. W. Berry of Jewett, Kan. According to Bro. Ten Eyck of the Kansas Agricultural college, Mr. Berrys’ plan is to cut alfalfa as soon as the dew is off In the morning, rake it green and haul it in the same day that it is cut, the only precaution being that there be no moisture on the hay other than that contained In the green stems and leaves. He stores the hay in large corncribs, the bottoms of which are elevated several feet above the ground with more or less open spaces, and the sides of the crib are also open. The cribs are large enough to store a single cutting of alfalfa from eleven acres of ground and only cover the bottom of the cribs to a depth of 4 or 5 feet. The hay is spread over the whole crib bottom la an even layer and not tramped, but left light and loose as It Is thrown in. The second cutting of alfalfa is placed above the first, and the third above the second, until the crib is full to the top. For three seasons now Mr. Berry has put up the hay from this field in the manner described above and each winter he has baled the hriy and sold it at au average of s2* tou uls>ve Ihe ma rket price for good alfalfa hay. The hay stored and cured In this way has besn greener In color nnd of better qua.ity than nlfnlfa pyt up by tbe usual methods. Our experiment stations have not given us as much Information on hay curing as they should. There are several methods of haymaking and each Is adapted to certain conditions. The problem in the humid regions 1‘ knotty one. Alfalfa liny nns been put up too green In Texas, and the reputation of It has suffered accordingly. There Is an excellent field for Investigation by our experiment stations.