Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1877-05-30
Agricultural Items.

hsaiXW nv
--~~-~@~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~>~~
Agricultural Items.
Maryland and Delaware promise
to produce fifteen million bushels of
peaches this year.
Within radius of ten miles of
Leesburg, Florida, there are now $780,
OOO bearing orange trees.
Straw berries and blackberries
promise an unusually large crop in
California the present season.
The cotton worm has made its APP
pearauce in Texas, especially in the
vicinity of the Rio Grande.
Everything is lovely in Texas.
Farmers immigrating and grasshop-
pers emigrating in vast numbers.
The sour oranges of Florida
fruit which grows indigenously and
most abundantly in that strange
peninsula-have at last been utilized
in the manufacture of marmalade.
In England, it is estimated that
there are 10000, 600 acres of land un-
der cultivation, one-fourth of which
is MANFRED annually with fifteen tons
of manure per acre, making total
of 1S7,OOO,OOO.
Many consider that ducks are more
profitable than hens for home use,
taking into account the number and
size of the eggs laid by them. The
solid matter and oil in ducks egg
exceeds that Of hens egg by fully
onc-fourth.
A wealthy farmer of Anderson,
Indiana, lost LOO bushels of old
wheat which he had harbored in the
granary for four years. The insects
ate the heart out of the grain, render
ing it useless for anything but fowl
feed.
The grasshopper region of Minne-
sofa, according to the st. Paul Pho
neer Press, has an area of one hun
dred miles in breadth by three hun
dred miles in length. 1t embraces
nearly two-thirds Of the State.
English breeders use blankets made
of silk for horses and cattle, for the
prevention and cure of colds, chills
and rheumatism. Moths will not
touch them, and their warmth, COM
fort and lightness render them in
valuable.
Miss Emma A. Smith, of Peoria,
has been appointed Assistant En-
tomologist for Northern Illinois.
This. lady has made insects injurious
to vegetation special study, and will
visit the northern districts of the
State during the summer in the
prosecution of her duties.
Herr Buschman, the most noted
cattle dealer in Holland, arrived in
the steamship Rotterdam, recently.
He weighs 32S pounds. His mission
is to speculate in the export trade in
American cattle. lie sent 200 head
by the steamship Schotten from New
York, last week.
Texas finds herself burdened with
too large stock of horses, and the
papers say that market or new
feeding ground must be found for the
vast herds of horses in Western Tex
as. A number of men intend to drive
herds of these horses to Kansas, this
summer.
Prominent European capitalists
have been negotiating for some time,
and at last successfully, with the
Land Commissioners of Florida for
100000 worth of orange lands.
They intend to bring into the State
1000 or 5000 hardy farmers from
England, Germany, France and Italy.
The grasshoppers are dying in
quantities in some counties in Texas.
Upon examination it has been ascer-
tanned that each dead grasshopper
contains worm, or chrysalis of a
worm. 1t is said that this worm is
Matched out of an egg deposited on
the grasshopper by small gray fly.
One method which farmers in
Northwestern Iowa are adopting to
outwit the grasshoppers is to engage
largely in the dairy business. They
are buying and renting all the cows
they can find; and as the 'hoppers
never touch the wild grass, in this
way they can always be sure of one
source of revenue.
Mr.. Bateham estimates that there
are in Ohio 10000 plum trees, of
which the counties of Hamilton, Clcr-
mont, Butler and Warren have $4,000.
Another $4,000 are mostly in the
county of Ross, the bulk of which are
Shropshire Damson. The planting
of plum trees is on the increase in all
portions of the northwest.
The quality of food from a we'll
fed apple tree is altogether superior
to that of half-starved tree of the
same variety. Very few farmers
think it profitable to bring poorly
fed beef to market and there ought
not to be many who think it profita-
BILE to raise poorly-fed apples. Let
us have fat apples as well as fat beef.
Feed the apple trees. Top-dress with
ashes, muck or barn manure. Apply
superphosphates, bone-dust and pot
ash salts.-Leaciston Journal.
In Bretangne, horses are fed on
parsnips instead of oats, and no COM
plants are registered as to falling of
in condition. Mr.. lie Bian feeds his
horses exclusively on parsnips, and
the animals he now exhibits in Paris
are superb. He gives each horse
forty pounds of the root daily, dis
tributed in three feeds; the expense
of cultivating one hundred weight of
parsnips is one franc; SO that the
daily ration of each horse is about
seven sous; now fourteen pounds of
oats day cost twenty-niue sous, or
four times dearer.