Connecticut western news., 1876-04-28
FARM, GARDEN AND HOUSEHOLD,
seasonnbIe Hints for the Farm.


 Top dressing at this season, with any thing but the very finest and best ma nure, except on sod for corn, is waste of time and labor. The effect comes too late to benefit the crop. Some active commercial fertilizer should be used instead. For grass or wheat one hundred and fifty pounds of nitrate of soda, or the same of guano, per acre, woutd be 8 good dressing. In using commercial fertilizers, 1t is well to make experiments as to quantities and va rietfes for different soils and crops.
 For the corn crop we have found the sooner the planting is done after the blowing. and while the soil is moist and fresh, the better. A top dressing of coarse manure upon the sod would be an excellent preparation for this crop.
 Many Western farmers have made flax profitable crop, the seed being in demand at the oil mills at good prices. It is useful crop to mellow and clean the soil, and may preeede fall wheat with advantage. A bushel and a half of seed per acre may be sown this month upon corn stubble.
 Raise the best calves, and thus gradu- ally raise the quality of their herds. A good calf is well worth a months fresh milk, and if their coming was timed for April, they could have the April milk, and the dairymen be richer and they the better for it.
 Early lambs should be pushed for, ward for market by giving extra food tc the ewes and increasing the flow o1 milk. To feed the lambs meal or othe, food, for which their stomachs are as yet unprepared, flinders their growth.
 You pigs may be pushed as fast as possible. When week old they may be taught, without difficulty, to drink milk from shallow pan, and in doing this the young animals may be tsmed and rendered perfectly docile. To. have tame and tractable animals about the farm will add much to their value, an6 the ease and comfort in tending them Feed the nursing sows well, and keeE them warm.
 The roller should be used with judg ment. It is valuable implement, bu sometimes it is used injuriously. It il most effective upon dry soils :; when the soil is damp clods are easily crushed but the surface is packed and crusted Meadows, on the contrary, should bt rolled while moist and soft, that stones and rough places may be pressed into the soil, and the surface leveled for the mower. Fall grain may be rolled witt advantage the day after it is narrowed if rain has not fallen.
 In purchasing tools and implements those that are hghtest, other things be ing equal, should be chosen. To handl, 8 heavy tool is 8 waste of muscle, nov that steel is in universal use for tn, best kinds. Even a hoe should b, sharp and bright to be most effective and in a mower dull knife will doubl, the draft. This is equally true of hors, power machines and of hand tools.- Agrdcatltatrist.
 Packing Butter.
 A well known dairy authority give the following directions for packing but ter so that it will keep sweet for eight O. nine months: Make 8 brine with saturated solution of the purest salt yol can get, using one pound of saltpeter t, about twenty pounds of salt. Scala tn brine by bringing it to boiling heat skim, and apply when sufficiently cool The casks should be carefully prepared as well as the brine. If the gum an( sap in the wood are not removed befor, the casks are used, they will work ou into the brine and affect the butter. IT. remove the woody flavor from the casks thorough steaming with high pres sure is the quickest and best means. I soaked before the steam is applied, ho steam will cut the gum and woody favo O ont TToo ch cA4 Sc convenient, soak in brine week or so and then fill with boiling hot brine, an, let it stand till it gets cool. By keepin, the butter under the brine and the cask full and in cool place, the butter cal be kept safely. Some of the tin-line, packages which have recently been in troduced, and which are easily hermeti cally sealed, would be much more con venient and probably fully as cheap a the oak casks and brine, and are claime , to be equally efficient in preserving.
 ECure for scab in Sheep.
 A farmer discovered 8 year ago tha a lot of his sheep had this disease. Tn first thing he knew, they lost thei wool, so that by shearing time they wer almost bare. Having heard of tobacc 1c O OuAOs DA0 1shAAAE W4bA ObucE T0uuS dies, he procured some thirty or fort pounds of the leaves, and boiled it u in great kettle. When cold, he poure the liquor into large tub, and, afte shearing, plunged each sheep that WE affected by the scab into it up to th neck, and then turned them out to pa ture. The liquor must be strong enoug to change the color of the wool to light red, and, according to this man experience, they will be cured, not onl of the scab, but if the lambs are dippe too, of all the ticks. Stalks of tobacc, cut up and boiled the same as the leave will do equally we'll.
 Cure for COrns.
 According to the Union Medical corns may be cured with greater certai ty and rapidity than in any other way simply applying, morning and evenin drop of perchloride of iron by meal of bit of straw. This treatment, co tinued for fifteen days, will, in me cases, effect cure without involvil any pain.
 A Baby Smoker.
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