Connecticut western news., 1872-01-26
Farm, Garden and Household.

FEEDING CATTLE AND SHEEP on the bare ground may be necessary in certain circumstances, but, as a rule, it is a most wasteful practice. If you cannot do anything better, made a rack out of 8 few rails or poles, placed alongside the barn, or shed, or fence.
 SPIcED APPLES. s.-The best way to make spiced apples is to take eight pounds of apples, pared, four pounds of suger. one quart of vinegar. one ounce stick cinna mon, half ounce of cloves. Boil the sugar, vinegar, and spices together, Put in the apples vi hen boiling and let them remain until tender-about twenty min- utes. Take them out and put them in jar. Boil down the syrup until thick, and pour it over.
 SoeT.-Although almost ever since agriculture has been practiced, soot has been known to be valuable m anure, in the nineteenth century there are hundreds of farmers who cannot be persuaded to believe 1t. It is really as valuable as guano. Take hogshead of W ater, and dissolve in it twelve quarts of soot, and you will have splendid liquid manure for plants. Apply it to the roots, of course, and then watch the result. Jou'7a0l o1f Me Fd1'm.
 PROPER CULTIVATION OF 'CoRN-S. French, Silver Lake, Kansas, informed the Farmers Club how he cultivated corn. His soil is sandy loam. He blows seven inches deep, plants his corn in rows, and cultivates with a one-horse double-shovel very deeply, so that he tears out the corn roots, which gather on the front of his blow. He asks, Is not this altogether wrong, and would not shallow cultivation be better? MT. Ly- man recommended cultivation only deep enough to kill the weeds and keep mel low surface.
 PULvERJzE MANURE.-We have endeav- ored at different times to impress upon our readers the importance of fine pull verizafion and thorough intermixture of manure with the soil. If the ingredients which go to make up fertility were all in large Jumps, they could be of little use in growing plants. If the silex were in the form of cobblestones, and the clay like unburned bricks, they would produce Q very different effect from that resulting from thorough pulverization together of these two ingredients. The same reason applies with as great force to ma nure, whether in large, unbroken Jumps or masses, or ground into powder and in- timately diffused among the particles of the earth.
 MLoH Cows, if fed literally, may be milked until within six weeks of calving. In ordinary cases, however, it is better to let them go dry for two months or ten weeks. The COW and calf will both be stronger and any fat or flesh stored up during this period, will, in case of a good COW, find it's way to the milk-pail next summer. For this reason we advocate liberal feeding, even when the COWS are dry. There is great prejudice against corn-meal for milch COWS. If fed with out judgment it may be injurious but in our own experience we have never known two quarts of meal day, cooked or uncooked (but far better cooked), have any other than the beneficial effect. Do not forget to card the COWS, or to give salt regularly and an abundant sup ply o1 fresh mot ice-cold) water.
 ENRIcH1SG DAIRY FARMs--Hen,fh and Home says: Several plans by which to enrich dairy farms suggest themselves First. By artificial manures, such as bonedust and nitrate of soil. In some circumstances these manures might be used with profit Where genuine bone dust can be obtained for $25 per ton, and nitrate of soda for 3k to cents per pound, we should not hesitate to use them extensively, at the rate say of 500 pounds of the former and 2O0 pounds of the latter to the acre. On many fields such an application would double the grass crop at once. Second. Keep n large stock of cows, asd buy more or less bran and grain to supplement the home grown feed. This would increase the quantity and qualisy of the manure and speedily augment the Productiveness of the farm. Third When any portion of the farm IS low and wet, drain it. Such land almost invariably contains large amount of latent plant-food. Draining, by removing the stagnant water and let ting in the air, renders this plant-food available, and frequently makes this low land the most productive and profitable portion of the farm. And the increased grass so obtained enables us to keep more stock and make more manure.
 CHEESE MAK1NG.-The first address delivered before the New York Dairy mans Convention was by T. D. Curtiss, Esq, of the Utica Heorld on the stand ard of cheese making. Tine address was ChOAC dud u1lU WCuG UO SHOW UDII as yet there is 10 received market stand ing. Mir. Curtiss reminded his hearers tbat cheese for home consumption should be made with a liberal use of rennet, while cheese for the foreign markets should be made with less rennet and more heat, so as to develop acid, also more salt was needed for the foreign markets. M. Poison, Esq.,, cheese deal Inf Nnu Work rno1 went to show that cheese and butter dealers were an amazingly honest and under-paid class of merchants, and he begged his agricultural hearers not to entertain even for one moment the idea of selling their produce direct through their own agents, but to patronize mid dle-men, and especially cheese dealers. Gen. Pratt spoke briefly on the various breeds of horned cattle as milkers, and recommended the crossing of the Ayre- shire and Channel Island cattle to se- cure good dairy COWS. Dr. Cordova, speaking of arnotto, warned the audience against the use of the manufactured article, as it frequently contained arsenic and red lead, both highly poisonous in their effect. Hon. Harris Lewis on "Corn as Winter Keep" showed clearly that corn was better than starvation, but that was all whereas that grasses were better than corn, being the natural food of the animal. It seems to be the gen. orally received opinion that well-cured grasses cut in flower were the best pos. sible dry Winter fodder for cows.
 WHAT THEY DO WITH THEM. In New York lawyer was conducting an exami. nation. A youth about ten years of age was placed on the stand to give his testi- ho