The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-02-20
USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.

N NV W
To KEEP sweet potatoes through the
winter treat them as the ladies do their
dahlia bulbs. Pack them in dry sand,
which has been thoroughly heated SO
as to drive out all the moisture, and
then set them in warm, dry place.
Potatoes have been kept for two years,
being stored in a warm, dry cellar,
near the furnace. Keep them away
from moisture. Unlike Irish potatoes,
which need O cold situation to keep
we'll. the potatoes need to be kept warm
and dry.
Protection OF IRON FROM RUsr.-
The following mixture is said to be an
excellent brown coating for protecting
iron and steel from rust: Dissolve two
parts crystallized chloride of iron, two
parts chloride Of anthony, and one
part tannin in four parts water, and ap-
ply with sponge or rag and let dry.
Then another coat of paint is applied,
and again another if necessary, until
the color becomes as dark as desired.
When dry it is washed with water, al
lowed to dry again, and the surface
polished with boiled linseed oil. The
chloride of anthony must be as nearly
neutral as possible.
FLAVOR OF Eaas.-There is a vast
difference in the flavor of eggs. Hens
fed on clean, eound grain and kept on
a clean grass run, give much finer
favored eggs than hens do that have
access to stable and manure heaps and
eat ell kinds of filthy food. Hens
feeding on fish and onions flavor their
eggs accordingly-the same as COWS
eating onions or cabbage or drinking
| offensive water imparts bad taste to
milk and butter The richer the food
the higher the color of the eggs,
Wheat and corn give the best color,
while feeding on buckwheat makes the
eggs colorless, rendering them unfit for
some confectionery purposes.
LEMON SIRUP.-Lemons are recon-
mended as very wholesome and useful
in certain states of the system. Peo-
pie often crave an acid of some kind,
particularly in the warm days of spring
| and summer. When lemons ale cheap
they should be made into strip for
future use. Press out the juice of the
lemon and remove the seeds, which give
bitter taste separate the pulp from
the peel, and boil the former, in the
proportion of q dozen pulps to a pint
of water, to extract the acid. Ten MIN
utes' boiling is sufficient strain the
water into the juice boil the whole ten
minutes and bottle it. One or two
tablespoonfuls of this lemon strip in a
| tumbler of water will make q cooling,
healthful beverage.
WALKING HoRsKs.-One of the most
desirable and fashionable gaits for a
horse is a walk, and it should first be
the aim to develop this gait in the hand
ling of the colt. The good walker will
always make good time on the road
when a days journey is to be made
without wearying himself, while the
slow mover must be constantly kept on
the trot if time is to be made. A horse
that will walk five miles an hour will go
as far in q day, confined to this gait, as
an ordinary horse can be driven when
kept half the time to the trot, and with
much greater ease to himself. If one
half the pains were taken by farmers
boys to make fast walkers of the young
sters on the farm that are usually taken
to make them trot, the result would be
| much more beneficial, and we would
find plenty of teams that could do their
five miles an hour with ease. But in
stead of this, as soon as the colt is
bridlea, the sole aim of "the boys is
to make trotter out of him, and both
gaits are spoiled. Make the colts walk,
boys, make them extend themselves in
long, sweeping, square walk, and
don't be satisfied with any thing less
than five miles an hour. When he gets
to trotting he will go all the tester for
this preliminary training to the walk
ing gait 4; and if he cannot trot fast
enough to beat Dexter, or Goldsmith
Maid, or Occident. he will have gait
that is invaluable for business purposes.
We hope to see more attention paid to
fast wslking than heretofore, and we
respectfully urge upon agricultural So
cieties the Importance of offering lib
eral prizes for walking horses at the
fairs for the ensuing year.-National
Liue Stock Journal
DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS.
Our wealth of maple, walnut and
hickory is substantially gone, and a
large part of it has been wantonly de-
stroyed. Wisconsin had magnificent
forest growth, but the people are
sweeping it away at rapid rate. One
billion feet of timber was cut in a sim
gle year. 1t will not take more than a
decade or two at the utmost to fairly
exhaust this source of wealth to the
State. Michigan and Minnesota are
following in the same course, slashing
away at their forests as if tree had no
right to lift its head. One of the most
intelligent army officers, General Bris-
bin, who knows the western country
thoroughly, and to whose accurate
knowledge of this subject we are in
debted for many facts, says that so, 600
acres of Wisconsin timber are cut annu-
ally to supply the Kansas and Nebraska
markets alone. The Saginaw forests
are even now practically destroyed, and,
if the Northern Pacific railway is built,
it will open up to the AK the one re-
naming belt of American timber-in
Oregon and Washington territory. The
railroads have been the great destroy
ers of our forests. They use 100, O0O,-
600 of ties annually-that means the
leveling Of $50, 600 acres of trees. The
outrageous waste of timber caused by
the telling of the forests and the burn
ing of trees to bring the land under