Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1872-06-13
FARM, GARDEN AND HOUSEHOLD.
The Farm.

The Farm.
The Poultry World thinks tho light
Brahama the best breed of fowls.
A poRK-RA1sER out West says he is
convinced, by an experiment, that there
is IN advantage of Is per cent. in grind
ing and cooking grain for swine.
ACCORDING to the Practical Farmer O
tablespoonful Of ground salt sprinkled
on the surface of each hill, before the
corn IS up, will prove sure death to the
cut worm.
A WISCONSIN correspondent of the
Western Farmer says he finds it abso-
lutely necessary to hill early rose pota-
toes, while peachblows and pinkeyes
do best with level culture.
In an article urging the importance
of forestry, the Western Rural express
es the opinion that by the time the
groves attain sufficient age to be val,-
able as timber, they will have paid for
themselves twice in the protection they
have afforded.
A CORRESPONDENT OF the Country
Gentleman has found that sowed corn,
when fed alone OF almost exclusively
and continually to COWS, is not so valu-
able as it has been generally consider
ed; but grass and sowed corn are all
that could be desired.
One of the most money-making ap-
ple-growers in Pennsylvania says his
success is owing to high culture. Be-
fore planting his orchard, the ground
was thoroughly prepared and literally
MANFRED, and this system is kept up,
so the ground is at all times in good
heart.
In potato culture, by covering the
surface of the ground with any coarse
mulch, a large yield of good sized tu-
bers is almost certain anywhere in the
Middle States, while without it a crop
is uncertain, especially in light soils.
Whether the mulch will cost more than
the increase OF crop is worth, depends
upon circumstances.
A CORRESPONDENT of one of our ex-
changes says he feeds his stock a tea
spoonful of sulphur to each animal,
with their salt, once in two weeks.
when he has done so no vermin have
troubled them, and his dairy COWS have
not been affected with garget, nor his
sheep with grub in the head. He has
practiced this twenty years.
IT certainly pays to take little
pains with young trees, for what is
there that is more remunerative than
an apple crop one year after another2
Who among our readers would he will
ing to take IS per tree for an orchard
of young apple trees just coming into
bearing2 We have an orchard of 600
apple trees, covering lot of fifteen
acres, that we would not take from our
grounds for $4,000. Add five years
more to them and one will see what
they will add to the land. It is the
strangest thing to see farmers owning
100 to 200 acres OF land, with barely
enough apples to supply the family or
perhaps, an orchard of 100 to $50 trees,
occupying three or four acres of land
from which they realize more profit
than from any twenty acre field they
have, not planting more apples, OF, af-
ter they do plant them, not giving
them the proper care. When will
farmers see this in its true light9
IT seems barely possible that the
dairymen may try to improve too ex-
tensively on old practices. At the e.
lgin butter factory, in Illinois, there
has been trouble, which has been trac-
ed to the too sudden cooling of milk.
The practice of cooling as rapidly as
possible is not likely to continue popu-
lar if it results in no better yield than
one pound of butter and three pounds
OF cheese from thirty six pounds of
milk. The fact IS the animal odor is
very volatile, and seems to pass away
rapidly enough under the natural man
ner of cooling, and equally so whether
the milk has been set in shallow or
deep pans; and when butter of the
choicest flavor and most perfect keep.
ing qualities has been, and may still be
made under old-fashioned methods,
farmers can hardly be recommended to
change them for new appliances until
they are really shown, to be improve
ments. While progressive men of all
occupations are on the lookout always
for advances and willing to study and
adopt the means by which advances
are attained, they are disposed to hold
fast that which is good and to let we'll
enough alone.
A CORRESPONDENT of the Country
Gentleman says: cit is generally
thought best, so far Us my knowledge
extends, to let dairy cows 60 dry three,
or at least two months. My own ex.
fence would give three months as about
the best average length of time cows
should go dry before dropping their
calves in spring: and this I find best,
without regard to the general health Of
the animal or the amount of milk to be
produced the following or after seasons.
Cows that are MIXED too long. either
get thin in flesh, and give but little
milk. and that of poor quality, or else
require q large amount of nutritious
food to keep mp good supply of milk
and the animal in good flesh. Ny rule
is to feed literally as long as I do milk,
and when cow gives less than, about
two quarts of good wholesome milk,
dry her off and lessen the feed. A dry
COW needs but about two.t thirds the
amount of fodder required by COW of
the same size which gives milk, so that
there is no present profit milking too
long, unless dairy products are very
high, to say nothing of the damage by
impairing the future usefulness Of the
cow"
The relative value of clover, as COM
pared with timothy or herds grass,
whether for hay, for winter feeding, or
for green forage for soiling in summer,
is one OF no uncomfortable interest to
practical agriculturists. When green
or first cut, one hundred pounds Of red
clover contains but nineteen pounds of
solid matter, whereas an equal weight
of timothy has more than forty. three
pounds. For soiling therefore, the cost
of cutting and hauling the two kinds of
forage to the stalls is the ratio of three
and one sixth, with the further draw
back in the case of clover that is too
watery character is detrimental to the
general health of the animals. For hay
however, the analysis of chemists gives
a greater relative worth to clover, ton
for ton, as compared with timothy, than
it is commonly credited with. Dried
at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, red clover
contains about twenty-five and one half
per cent. Of flesh-forming, and forty.
four and one half per cent of heat pro
ducing food elements while of these,
timothy has respectively abont eleven
and one third. three and one half, and
fifty-three and one third per cent.
ASIDE from the production of small
power machines for churning, mechan-
ism has done less to diminish work in
the dairy than in any other department
of farm practice. This is almost nee
essarily the case, because 80 much OF
care and intelligence is required to di