Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1907 — FARM AND GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM AND GARDEN

If possible, select your brood sows ■when the pigs are 5 or 6 months old. Sunshine, crude carbolic acid and air-slaked lime will keep the hogpens sweet. 1 i • * L_ Fowls that get a little charcoal and a few sunflower seeds once or twice a week will have red combs and bright plumage. It is about time for some faker to bojb up with some new variety of alfalfa with wonderful qualities. A variety that will do well anywhere and live on anything. The advertiser of a breed not only lays the foundation for a paying business for himself, but helps boom his breed and his association, and thereby Indirectly benefits his brother breeder.

When a farmer sells a horse he must give a guarantee. When the same farmer buys nursery stock he has to wait until the trees come Into bearing to see whether he has what he bought. The woman with a gasoline stove and the farmer with a gasoline engine have all of a sudden discovered that the demand for gasoline by automobiles has caused it to slide up a notch or two In price. A thorough farmer can get more out of the scrub than a scrub farmer can. • As a rule that kind of a farmer does not keep the scrub auy longer than he can help. A scrub farmer will soon make a scrub out of a pure-bred animal.

Hogs shipped into the stock yards Bhow the result of too much inbreeding by careless farmers, who reason that it does not pay to get a new boar each year while they have one which will breed, and they lose enough in a litter or two to pay for a new sire. Breeding at random and repenting at leisure has run its course—at least It should have by this time. It is now in order that less time and money be spent ou this, or that or the other breed and more attention be paid to the Individual animal.

A camel can easily carry a weight of one thousand pounds on Its back, about four times as much as a horse can carry. The camel begins work at the age of 4 and Is useful for half a century; the horse, as a rule, Is nearly played out at the age of 15. Mowing down strawberry tops just after fruit has been gathered is practiced on many rich soils to cause the plants to stool out more vigorously and to retard runners. This Is sometimes followed by a thin dirt covering to further encourage stoollng. An exchange remarks that "what Is known in the market ns chamois skin Is really oil-tanned sheep shin linings. The supply of real chamois Is very limited, and all there is In the world would not supply the United States for a single day/’ Another decided score for the sheep!

Now come’ the news that food adulteration Is practiced In Germany Just as extensively as in tills country. That Is awful after that country refusing our pork products. It is presumed that Germany wants to do its own adulterating. The number of prosecutions for adulterating food in Germany have Increased from 1,460 to 6,000 in 1903. Who’d thought It? More money may be made from orchards on thin land when the trees are Bet close, twenty to twenty-five feet apart, tlinn when only half that many are set. The trees shade the ground better, and heat and drought will not do as much damage as when the greater part of the ground is exposed to the sun to burn up the humus and dry the moisture out of the soil.

When snow Is on the ground, rabbits lmve a hard time securing food, and will eat anything that will prevent starvation. It Is then they girdle trees and do damage which is not within the power of the farmer to repair. Smenrlng the trunk with blood or wrapping the trees with tarred paper or mosquito netting two feet from the ground serves ns a protection. For twenty years the Ohio Experiment Station produced an average of forty bushels of wheat In a three-year rotation .consisting of potatoes, wheut and clover. On another farm a rotation of corn, oats, wheat, clover and timothy was carried on with a yield of twenty-eight and one-half bushels of ■wheat per acre. With proper market privileges for n series of years a clover. potatoes and wheat rotation will be hard to beat —s. . : : ..' Ask n cattle feeder in tlie corn belt bow be la coming out with his steers.

and he will say that if his steers don’t make him any profit his hogs Will, let him out So often does this happen that the hog has come to be an important factor to reckon with in all cattle-feeding operations. Indeed, if it were not for the gruuters, the business of cattle feeding might be a precarious , one. There is a sad lack of profits, as a general thing, in handling hogs, just because lack of managment somewhere. The essentials are the countless little things which no one can teach another, and these have more” to do with it than general rules. The blood, the care, the warm shelter, the proper food are all oft the list, but only the practical man learus those which are not written.

To Get Rid of Cocklelmra. A correspondent of a farm paper says: . Cockleburs can only be exterminated by pulling up the last one of them in a field for two years running. The necessity for the two-year treatment Is accounted for from tliq fact that every cocklebur, according to our correspondent, contains two seeds, one of which will grow the first year and the other one the second. By planting corn for two years running, and taking great care not to leave a single plant in the field, It Is claimed they can be exterminated.'

Producing- Denatured Alcohol. “If a farmer or other person desires to go into the business of manufacturing denatured alcohol, at a plant however small,” says Internal Revenue Commissioner Yerkes, “he will be required to construct his plant In the manner prescribed by the general laws and regulations. He will be required to give a bond, the effect of which is to prevent him from defrauding the government Of the tax on any distilled spirits produced by him. lie will be required to establish a distillery warehouse ; to deposit the spirits produced by him In this warehouse; to establish -a denaturing bonded warehouse, and to tax pay or denature, just as he may wish, the alcohol produced by him. All of this will be done under governmental supervision, but the government pays for this supervision. The manufacture of alcohol does not bear one cent of It. There is no objection to a farmer manufacturing Ills alcohol In ‘his back yard’ provided he wants to establish a distillery there. If you will take the trouble to investigate you will find, in my opinion, that the laws and regulations relating to the manufacture of alcohol In Germany do not differ to any great extent from the laws and regulations in this country.”

Morse Maintains His Position. The horse is always about to be, but never Is put out of business. On the appearance of every new agency of transportation the announcement is solemnly made that the horse, after passing through an era of decreasing prices, \MW cease and determine. It was so when railroads began to gain headway, when bicycles came Into use, when the electric cars commenced to buzz along the highways, when the auto developed Into something more than a curiosity, but yet here the horse Is still with us, and more valuable than ever. Statistics submitted to the House of Representatives, In connection with the agricultural appropriation bill, show that there has been a notable increase both In the number and value of horses in the United States in the ;ast nine years. The aggregate of horses Jan. 1, 1906, stood at 18,718,578, against 14.367.66 t at the corresponding date of 1897. Their total value Increased from $452,649,396 In 1897 to $1,510,889,906. This startling rate of Increase In value Is no more marked than that of mules, according to the same government authorities. There were 2,216,654 mules in- 1897 and 3,104,061 !n 1906, and the values were, respectively, $92,302,000 and $334,680,520.

Hanktniv Corn. The following expression of opinion Is from one who has been watching the work of handling corn by machinery: Much of the work will be done by the power busker and shredder, but a number who Ijad their corn husked in this manner last year are going to return to the old method as being cheaper and more satisfactory. The shredder Is the natural companion of the binder, and most of the corn cut by the latter will be sh.vdJoL There are, however, some binders In this vicinity that have stood still while their owners cut their corn by 'land, they thinking It cheaper and fully as rapid and easy, where help for sbeeking could not be obtained. A nei jh bor of mine cut one field with a shocker, hut could have cut It as quickly by hand, and went back to the binder for the next field. He will shred these shocks, and, I think, find them bnnl to handle, ns they are so tightly compressed. 'ln busking by band, It will be found convenient to have crates enough for one or two loads and scatter a load o 4 them along the roxvs before husking, throwing the corn Into them while husking. This will save picking up and shoveling off. and the hauling will lie easier and more rapid. Shredded fodder la all right If the stalks are thoroughly cured when shredded. If not, loak out for spoiled fodder—and also corn, unlcaa put In a narrow, woll-rantllnted crib.