The weekly Shasta courier. [volume] (Shasta, Calif.) 1872-190?, 1873-07-05
FARM AND GARDEN.

gent in their preservation and improve
ment. Wherever nature has been mig
gardly of her gifts, man has been pro-
gressive> and energetic. In the one
case, he is tempted to depend largely
on the assistance of natural endowments;
in the other, he relies mainly on his
own exertions. These are the relative
conditions of farming on the Pacific
Coast and pursuing the same vocation
east of the Rocky Mountains. Relying
on the fertility and freshness of our soil,
and the equable nature of our climate;
placing faith in the wonderful luxuri-
ance and liberality with which the earth
yields of her fruits in favorable seasons,
the fsrmer on this coast contents him.
self with scratching over an immense
surface, and seeding it down with one
staple article. If he selected wheat,
then wheat alone claims his attention,
and so on throughout the whole cata-
logue. Years of failure and adversely
seem to bring him no real or practical
knowledge. He has either forgotten the
lessons of skillful tillage and sound
farming learned in the home of his
youth, or he has discarded them as be-
ing superfuous in so genial, so prodigal
country. The vegetable, meats, fruits,
and everything except the one product
of his farm, consumed by his family, are
obtained from other sources. With
every appliance and facility for being
as independent as man can be, he is the
most dependent, and should his crop
fail, he is overtaken by actual distress.
Were the same forethought, energy,
skill, and economy practiced by the
farmers of this coast as we find demon
strated in the tillage or the soil through
out New England and the Middle States,
there would be no failures, no disgusts,
TO lamentations, but prosperity and
abundance in every homestead. Visit
the farms of New York, Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, etc., and
you will find delightful residences en-
powered among choice fruit and orna-
mental trees; lovely flower and vege-
table gardens; well-built barns, cribs,
and outhouses; nicely cultivated fields
of wheat, rye, oats, beans, peas, buck
wheat, and other products of the earth;
neat, substantial fences; selected farm
ing implements kept in the best order;
social intercourse and harmony existing
among neighbors; intelligence, goodwill
and manly dignity their
prominent traits. What does the travel
er see on the Pacific Coast Field
after field of wheat; miles upon miles OF
the same product; leagues upon leagues
of land seeded to wheat; wheat to the
right of you, wheat to the left of you.
One looks in vain for commodious and
handsomely furnished homesteads; COM
Portable barns and neat outhouses Or
chards and gardens poultry, pig pen,
sheep houses, cow yard, and stable.
1t gratifies us to bear witness to the
fact that there are notable exceptions,
but this is the rule Our farmers do
not employ the skill, energy, and econ
omy of those in less naturally favored
sections. They trust too much to luck,
and depend too largely on soil and
climate. They conine their operations
within too narrow scope, in so far as
variety is concerned, and extend them
over too large a space to give it faithful
attention. We have much land under
semi cultivation; but few, very few
farms grace this State. - Commercial
Herald.
PERMANENT FLOWER BEDS. - To
save time and labor of reshaping flower
beds every spring, when made in the
sod-lg out the form you wish them,
take off the surface to the depth of eigh-
teen inches, cut the side straight down,
set large, long-shaped stones edgewise
around, even and upright, supporting
each other firmly, preserving the same
height above the surrounding surface.
The stones should stand six inches
above; this will prevent the grass grow
ing into the bed. Replace the sod to the
height of one foot; fill up with soil and
compost, raising the centre eighteen
inches higher than the edge. Dressed
up, and rich soil added every spring,
you have a bed that will last over twenty
years. The stone sides keep the roots
of the plants moist, and enables them
to stand the heat and drought of sum-
mer.
To cure the hog cholera, take one
teaspoonful of copperas, half-pint of
sweet milk, mix well together; throw
the hog on his back, then with corn
cob or stick hold the mouth open, and
apply the medicine. This treatment l
have never known to fail.-Cin. Times.
A correspondent of the Farmers Club,
New York, says that for removing knots
from plum-trees, he takes paint brush,
dips it in spirits of turpentine, and
saturates the knot, being
careful not to touch the tree except in
the diseased parts. The turpentine
kills the excrescence, and the tree puts
out healthy branches below. He burns
all branches of diseased trees which he
has removed in pruning.
Fowls EATING THEIR EGGs- Get
earthen nest eggs and take the eggs
laid from the nest as soon as they are
dropped. Give them free access to
lime, and feed fresh meat two or three
times a week Ne1o Yorker.
Uncle Sam is the greatest publisher
in the country, and Congress the most