The Lake County star., 1876-07-20
AGRICULTURAL ITEMS.

The grasshopper and the potato-bug
sink into insignificance when compared
to the locust that has recently devastated
the grain fields of the Spanish provinces
of Badajoz and Cuidad Real. Over six
thousand tons of the insects have been
burned with petroleum in trenches, and
$1,000 soldiers have been occupied in de-
stroying them.
LAST September John Ross, of Eau.
quier County, Va, bought one hundred
and fifty ewes from Tennessee. This
spring he sold his crop of lambs and wool
for five hundred and fifty dollars. The
ewes cost him five hundred and forty dol
lars, and the pasturage, wintering, and
grazing them was between fifty and
sixty dollars. He made a clear profit
of ninety per cent. on his investment.
The Fargo (Cal.) Times asks: What
do you think Of an unbroken furrow six
miles long? That's what you can see
any day by going to Elm River, where
Messrs. Dalrymple and Grandin are
breaking prairie. The teams start in the
morning and make one round across an
entire township and back Twelve miles)
before dinner, and the same in the after
-twenty-fOur miles travel for every
team every day. All for wheat next
year.
ALTHOUGH melon sugar is no new
thing, still very little of it is known in
this country. Melons have long been
cultivated in Southern Europe for sugar
making and there is no good reason why
we could not do the same and on ali ex-
tensive scale, provided the manufacture
of such an article was profitable. We
notice that the subject is attracting some
attention in California, but it may end
no better than the beet-rOOt sugar enter
prises and silk-worm culture, both of
which seem to hold on to life, but show
little vigor or profits to inventors.
TIE most economical way of treating
bones Tor manure is to reduce them with
ashes. For this purpose the simplest
and best process is to take large cask
and pack the bones, previously y broken as
small as may be convenient, in a layer
about six inches deep. On these put an
equal layer of unleached ashes. Then
repeat the alternate layers until the cask
is nearly filled. Then saturate the mass
with lye and keep it moist for four or
five months. At the expiration of this
time the bones will usually be so soft that
they may be broken into a fine powder
on the barn floor and sifted. If any pieces
of the hardest bones are left, they can be
easily and advantageously added to an.
other lot on some other occasion. As we
have had number of recent inquiries on
this subject, the above described method
will furnish sufficient reply to the sew
eral parties.
The we'll known plant, spartianthus
junceus, has been lately utilized in South
ern Europe, in the manufacture of textile
fabrics. Its fiber is said to be capable Of
indefinite subdivision, and hence suita
BILE for the finest cloths; it retains heat
and may, therefore, supply the place ol
wool it is good absorbent, and takes
the most delicate dyes with the same
facility as do animal textile materials
it sufficiently rcsists the action of acids
and salt water without undergoing any
change or losing its tenacity, as has beer
satisfactorily proved by its immersion
for whole month in diluted sulphurit
acids; its strength is also found to be one
third greater than that of hemp, and i
is thirteen per cent. lighter, so that with
fifteen per cent. less of raw material {
rope may be obtained the relative strength
of which, compared with the one mad,
of hemp, is as three to two.
j. M. HAYES, of Lebanon, o., finds /;
sweet corn crop more profitable than ;
distillery. lie raises over five hundred
acres of this crop annually. The drying
house employs fifty persons. The fresl
ears are steamed five minutes TO "set th'
milk "-the grain is then cut off rapidly
with cutters having concave faces. 1t i
then spread on perforated zinc tables, ant
heat applied four or five hours from Ion,
furnaces, stirring constantly. 1t is theI
packed in barrels of three bushels eacl
for shipment. Great care is required t
have the corn just at the right age, anC
have it dried just enough to keep well
Four bushels Of fresh corn on the col
makes one bushel dried-the whOlesal,
price of which is twenty to twenty-five
dollars per barrel. At fifty bushels o
corn per acre, five hundred acres woult
yield twenty-five thousand bushels, ant
give over two thousand barrels of drieo
corn, which, at twenty dollars per barrel
would be 100000.