Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1906 — FARM AND GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM AND GARDEN

The milk-fed calf needs water. This Is something that should not be neglected-., < - There is no use talking about making a wet farm contribute its full share .ilSlessJt is tile drained. The average weight of hogs received on the markets, is much less than a few years ago. The demands of the markets are undergoing a change. Pullets and 2-year-old hens are the most profitable' After a hen is 3 years old she becomes unprofitable for an egj» producer, and is rather tough for table use. - r Did you ever stop to think that if all men were sharp there would be no sale i .bricks? If all men OOutd su<F~ cessfully launch some scheme there would be no biters, no schemers and no get-rlch quick schemes. Red raspberry plants should be taken from a young, healthy bed. Plants from an old bed are vigorous and more liable to be diseased. The proper dis' tame between the rows is seven feet for garden culture and eight feet for field culture. Orcharding and hog breeding are now the joint order of the day among progressive fruit growers in the southwest. The t\to industries combine most harmoniously. (Toss femc< and feed patches are needed, however, to insure- absolute control., A number of small portable poultry houses are handy on a poultry plant,; as they can, be used to place brooders in in the early spring, and later can be utilized for growing stock, breeding liens or laying hens, and can be moved to different points on the farm. -—l-f tlie fftrniei‘ 4ras growing ut bear-mg peach, plum or other fruit tree whose iiame is not known it should be identified through the committee on nomenclature of the State Horticultural society in order that the owner may purchase other trees like the one now giving satisfaction. The man who keeps his hordes “scared of him” all the time is wondering why they do not come up to him when he is in the far side "f the pas ture trying to catch them. He is heard to say, “If I ever catch you I'll give you a sound thrashing,” and that probably explains why he can’t catch them.

An experiment with young pigs at the Connecticut experiment station, showed that they did much better on milk with 3% per cent fat than on milk having more than 5 per cent. The best results were secured with skimmilk. Many good farmers have raised tine calves on a diet almost exclusively of skimmilk. Hog cholera is not a phantom to be brushed away with a hope that it will not reach—your herd of swine. It is just a question as to whether the germ is introduced or not. When one has done all he can along precautionary lines, he will probably get caught after all, but the careful man generally comes out ahead. Fertilizers pay better on fruits than on corn or cotton, but they should not contain toes much nitrogen else wood growth is too much stimulted. Phosphate and potash are the best fruit fertilizers, but cottonseed meal, nitrate of soda or stable manure may be used if it appears that the tree, itself is not growing fast enough. Many of the sons of toil of the present generation do not know the first principles of binding grain by hand. They came on the stage of action since the introduction of the self-binder and have never acquired the art. It is amusing to see some of the grown-up sons trying to bind an occasional bundle that happened to be thrown off unbound. A bulletin frtry the department of agriculture relr the habits and life history of the rodling moth and advises spraying with parts green and Scheele's green, one pound; lime, three pounds: 150 gallons of water. The spray kills the young worms before they enter the fruit. They get the poison while feeding on the leaves and on the stem end and sides of the fruit. Raising tomatoes in large quantities requires large quantities of fertility in the soil. If it is possible to secure barnyard manure in large quantities, it might be spread upon the ground and turned tinker in the early spring, and It would Supply in large part the necessary fertilizing ingredients mentioned above. Some tomato growers use guano, sprinkling about ode handful in each hill before the plants are set out Denmark, which breeds some of the best heroes in the world, last April lm-

ported 1,100 horses from Sweden, 1,700 from Russia, besides a large number from Norway. The explanation is that so many horses have been sold to Germany that it is necessary to supply the shortage by importation, but the thrifty Danes find this a very profitable business. The Norwegian fjord horses find iiiucfi Tavo"r in Dehmark. They are small, but are strong and active thrive splendidly. Pigs Are Naturally Clean; The pig. by nature, is one of the cleanest of animals, and in internal construction resembles the human being more closely than any other animal. What wonder, then, is it that we hear of so much disease when they qre ’kept under such filthy conditions as we so often see? Give them clean, healthy surroundings and we shall hear very little of disease, and they will be to us the money-making machines they have proved themselves. Skin DineaseM of Sheep. Sheep are sometimes infested by parasites which cause diseases of the skin other than the scab insect. The so-<‘alled Texan mange or itch is eaused by a variety of io,use known as demowhich infests the dog and all the canine race, wolves, foxes and all the related animals which range over the west and south, and which cause a watery eruption on the skin, which forms scabs. This special parasite does not affect cattle. Another one infests sheep, cattle and horses, farming scabs oil the skin, but they do not burrow under, as tbe x scab mite does. The universal remedy is to dip the sheep as for -cab, breaking the crusts formed so as to reach the parasites and clean the skin. The common sheep scab dip is the best remedy for this, indeed fez all this class of skin diseases. By dipping regularly twice a year, as a preventive of all these diseases complete immunity is secured. Whenever a sheep is seen to be biting itself it is time to use the dip without delay. Mneli troulile wfll~Be~save3~lQljls Work E done twice a year.—Field and Farm. Why Build a Silo? The silo enables us to, preserve a greater quantity of the food materials of the original fodder,.for the feeding >f farm animals than is possible by any. other system of preservation now kno,wn. The necessary loss of nutrients incurred in the siloing process need not exceed 10 per cent, and by beginning to feed from the silo soon after it has been filled, the loss will be reduced t a minimum which may not be tar from 5 per cent. In hay-making or field curing of course f. ihlers. there is in tnavoifiable loss of leaves ami other ernler parts, and in em'ing fodder cmm. loss o' nearly 10 per cent under the best >f conditions, or about as much as is le,st in the silo. The loss of dry matter will approach 25 per cent in ordinary farm practice and will even exceed this figure unless special precautions are taken in the handling of the fodder. The proper constructir.n cf the silo is. of the greatest importance If the sides of the silo are not air-tight, too much air is admitted and the silage will spoil. If the walls.are not perfectly rigid the pressure o.f the silage will cause them to spring out, thus allow ing air to enter between the silage and the wall, and, again, the result is decayed silage. Before building a silo the most careful attention should be given to location, size, form and method o/ construction. These will differ somewhat according to locality and individual needs. —Farming.

Digestibility of Stock Food. In all feeding materials there are portions which cannot be digested, and even when digested much is not assimilated. The characteristics of the an 1 - mals have some influence in digestion, and the consequence is that the farmer can convert but a portion of any kind of food into salable products; but the manure heap recovers that which would otherwise be of no value. A ton of clover, valued at $lO, when used for food, is added to the profit by the farmer, but as much as $9 may come back to the farmer in the manure; and a ton of cotton-seed meal, costing S2O, may return as much as $lB to the manure after producing milk, meat and butter, the value depending, ho.wever, on the prices of fertilizer materials. The reason of this gain to the farmer is that the larger proportion of these feeding stuffs consist of fat and starch, which create fat on the bodies of the animals and provide warmth, but fat and starch are derived from the atmosphere and not from the soil; hence the real value —the nitrogen and mineral matter (or the larger portion) goes into the manure heap. Both linseed meal and cotto.n-seed meal may be used on the soil us fertilizers, even at S2O per ton, but it is better to first feed them to live stock, so as to derive the benefit from the oil and starch, which are of no value tq the soil or as plant foods. By feeding all food materials to animals, they are passed through the body, after being masticated, which not only reduces the coarsest to a fine condition, but the process of digestion renders the foods more. acceptable to plants. In some cases the results may not be immediate, but the farmer finds bls soils become more fertile every yyar and his crops larger.