The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1874-10-22
|, FARM AND HOUsRHoEp.s
KEEP 1,rn sAns 4sD HsSpnraA!

II
Somebody We kp6Nj not who. &Ae,s
years ago.. the following advice: Like
other good things, it comes to the sur
face occasionally and will bear repeating:
hyou have moment to spare, spruce up;
put the gate on Its hinges; put little
paint on the picket fence you built last
year; trim up the door yard make it
cosy and inviting. Do not say you can't
find time to attend to these things. The
fact is, you have no right to be slovenly.
1t can do you no good, but on the con-
trary, IT will mar your peace, wound
your selfrespect and impair your credit.
Then, by all means, spruce up little, at
odd times, and at even times too for that
matter. 1t will make you fcelvastly bet
ter, and maybe, a trifle proud of your
pretty homestead. Your wife and chill
dren will be made happier for it; your
neighbors will be, enriched, 2 beaut1,
fled and blessed by IL. And your farm
will be worth more money in the market
and of greater value to you at home, If
you spruce up little now and then. !
THE USE OF WEEDS. WIN not weeds
take possession OF the old meadows after
while? Yes if the meadows are not
properly fed. There is some truth, in
the maxim of the ancients that nature
abhors vacuum. Weeds abound on old,
worn-out lands simply because the proper
nutriment for more delicately organized
heritage. has been exhausted, White
daisies and golden-rod, and even hard
hacks, are better than utter barrenness.
In their decay they furnish food for
of NIL ntc ia
mined to produce something, and if left
to herself always produces that to which
the soil is most congenial. If water
abounds coarse, aquatic plants will as
surely grow without any sowing of the
seed, as will corn when planted in good
loan. We have seen alluvial meadows
that had for long series of years pro-
duced large crops of good hay, being kept
in good heart by deposit of fine fertiliz-
ing material in the annual overflow of q
neighboring river suddenly have their.
heritage changed to reeds and rllshes by
the daming of this river and the conse-
quent setting back of the water over their
surface. In those parts Of the meadows
where the water did not come within a
foot of the surface, the character of the
grasses was changed.-Lndiana Farmer.
FERTILIzING FOR WHEAT No doubt
many farmers are just now endeavoring
to make up their minds what to use as a
manure for wheat. Some have used their
yard manure for corn and need some
thing for the wheat, and others have used
their yard manure for the wheat, but
have not enough to cover the whole field
and are compelled to finish out with some
thing else. To the latter class my advice
would have been to spread the yard ma
nure all over the field and then follow it
up by a light dressing of some kind of
fertilizer all over the manure. To both,
classes the question arises, (Which will
be the best for the amount of money ex-
pended?" For several years have been
experimenting with compounds of my
own mixing, and have in my own opinion,
attained to moderate degree of success.
The past season / have demonstrated the
action of the following mixture: bone
dust 5000 lbs, sulphate of potash 1000,
sulphate of soda 1000, gypsum 1000.
With common watering pot dampen
(not to wet) the bone, and thoroughly
mix the soda and potash with it; let this
be done for five or six weeks before the
mixture is needed and have the pile
shoveled over at least once each week !;
just before applying add the plaster; the
caustic soda and potash will divide the
particles of bone, and although have no
right to claim any chemical change, yet
/ have found the mixtare not only cheap
but also effective.
SEEDING FRUITS. = The editor of the
Germantown Telegraph writes as follows:
Meeting with friend we inquired what
varieties of fruit were in most favor with
him, knowing him to be very successful
and enthusiastic fruit-raiser. To our as
constituent he replied that so far as rasp-
berries and blackberries were concerned,
he depended, and had done so for years,
on seedlings. He does not care to dis
tinguish any separate varieties but sows
the seeds, raises the plants, and then sets
them out permanently to bear as he would
ordinary named plants.
"This way of working is not unknown
among peach-growers, with whom natural
seedlings have found in some quarters
considerable favor. 1t is said that they
are healthier and more reliable than the
regular grated fruit. They are not suited
to the wants Of market men. They want
to know to day when their trees will
give ripe fruit, so as to have a regular
succession of market kinds, and this
knowledge can only be secured by having
regular named kinds, regularly pro-
pagated by budding or grating on seed
ling stocks. AS to the superior health
fitness of these Seeding trees, we believe
this to be conceded. One thing is GER
tain, few persons have such healthy
strawberries and raspberries as our friend
to whom we referred, and he attributes
m UGH of his success to what he calls this
continual Infusion of new blood into his
fruit-garden by this seeding practice of
his"
COLvER HAY FOR HORSES. = The New
York Herald says: Many farmers are
strenuously opposed to red clover as feed
for horses of any kind, as they contend
the poisonous dust which rises from the
dead stalks and dry leaves frequently
causes the heaves. For many years we
have kept horses almost exclusively on
clover hay through our long winters, and
the blossoms had turned brown, and the
hay mostly cured in the cock in good
weather, so as to retain most of its leaves
and heads, and green appearance, we
have never known it to produce either
cough or heaves. We know of no reason
why it should produce a cough in horses,
any more than red top or herd grass.
Glover when cut early for hay, as it gen.
orally should be, from its succulence, if
not well dried before being carried to the
barn in large quantities, is very liable to
heat in the NOW, or on the scaffold this
process produces some injurious chemical
changes in the hay. The starch, sugar,
gum, ETC., first assume the vinous fer
mentation, producing a saccharine quality
in the hay. If the change here be ar
rested, no bad results would follow, the
nutritive and healthy quality of the hay
would not be lessened-but generally the
vinous runs into the acetous fermen-
tation--this is followed by sourness,