The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-01-22
AGRICULTURAL.
Agricultural Notes

A Berlin butcher has been indicted for
using oxalic acid to ''touch up' dead meat
to make il look fresh and red.
Not less than from one-third TO four-ffths
of the entire quantity of carbon contained in
the crops we reap, from land of average fer
tility, is really obtained from the air.
Spain has more sheep in proportion to her
population than any country in Europe, next
comes England, then Denmark, Roumania
and Hungary. Saxony, Belgium and Swift
Zerland have the least.
The United States import about 100000
boxes of raisins annually. California, which
last year produced 10000 boxes, claims to be
and doubtless is able to raise enough to sup
ply the whole country.
Four competitors for a prize for the best
crop OF Indian corn in Maine produced on a
halt acre respectively 834, 72, 20 and 60 bush
els of shelled corn. The estimated cost,
counting everything, varied from % to so
cents per bushel.
Price Torlonia has completed the drainage
of the Fucine Lake in Italy. This cost
$10,000,000 and the labor of % years, but it
has opened for tillage 10000 acres of rich
land, improved the health of the place and
set an example of benefcent enterprise which
Italy was In need Of
The temperature which dry soil will
attain in the summer time is often very great.
At the Cape of Good Hope it has been OBJ
served that the soil attained a temperature of
$50 deg. F., when that of the air was only
120 deg. The warmth of the soil between
the tropics often rises to from 124 deg. to
139 deg.
The number of horses in Norway in 1875
was Isl, 903. There are consequently but 81
horses to every thousand inhabitants, as
against 227 in the United States, 225 in Rus
STA, 176 in Denmark, 103 in Sweden, SO in
Ok in GNrnof Rritair and Irp-
land, 50 in Germany, and 76 iu France. The
countries On the Mediterranean are still low
er on the list, owing to their general employ
ment of mules, asses and draught oxen.
The Kentucky Liue Stock Record having
asserted that whenever pound of butter
was made from less than seven pounds of
milk, there was either mistake or false
hood, Judge Hayes of Clinton, Iowa, comes
to the front with the assertion that he would
not keep Jersey COW on his farm that, dur
ing the winter months, would not do better
OF milk from his COW, Hagar, III. Il, 1898, in
winter, will make pound of butter.
a crop of 300 bushels of potatoes per acre
removes about $50 pounds of mineral matters,
OF which about one-half consists of potash
and one-ninth part of phosphoric acid. A
mangel crop, weighing twenty tons of roots
per acre, removes from the soil (excluding
the amount taken up in foliage) from 300 to
280 pounds of mineral matter. including
from 100 to 140 pounds of potash and from
Is to % pounds of phosphorc acid. Cereal
crops remove only about IS pounds of mineral
matter per acre, of which 10 or II pounds
consist of potash, and IA or Is pounds OF
phosphoric acid.
The greater the number of trees in a coun-
try, the greater, other conditions being equal
is its rainfall. In France, the extent OF for
ests and woods in 1850 was estimated to GOV.
er 100000 of English acres; The area under
timber is now reduced by one-half. This has
led to decrease in the annual rainfall, which
according to some authorities, is injurious to
the agriculture of the country and necessitates
the practice of irrigation in many sections.
Egypt was once a rainless country, but now,
blythe planting of millions of trees in it, rain
descends regularly every winter.
Beet-sugar factories pay well in Germany.
The balance sheet of the "Cujawien" sugar
factory at Amsee, now only in the second
year of its existence, sets forth that during
the past season the company have treated
26,2S2 tons of beets, and after writing off five
per cent. for depreciation of buildings and
ted per cent. for that of machinery, laying
oat $4,000 on extensions, carrying over
$4,000 to the reserve fund, and handsomely
remunerating officers and directors, there
still remains a net profit of $4,000 for divis-
ion among the shareholders, at the rate OF
twenty per cent. upon their capital sub
scribed.
In house culture, cuttings should not be
started before the month of February. Plants
from cuttings taken will if well grown, be
large enough to furnish cuttings themselves
by the middle of April, which will in turn
be good plants for bedding out the last of
May. If hot-bed is obtainable, cuttings may
be raised in great quantities. About the
middle of April, plunge pots full of cuttings
in gentle hot-bed; they will root in few
days, and may then be potted off. They
should then be grown in cold frame, with
plenty of air in fine weather, and by the mid
d e OF May they will be fine stocky plants for
the garden.
Since the advent of the cabbage worm
almost every one has been at loss to know
what to do to raise few cabbages. Some
have tried one thing and some have tried an
other, and mostly to no purpose. Last year
set about $50 fine plants and picked off the
worms by hand as they came, for about two
weeks, which took about two hours each
day. This seeming to be too much work,
and as have a well of soft water near by, 1
took five-pail kettle, set it near the well
and put into it pint of soft soap and the
same of salt and then filled it up with water.
let this stand till the water was warmed by
the sun, and then, after stirring it up well, 1
took my waterproof and applied it at the rate
of about a gallon to 40 heads, putting it in
the centre. did this every day, and the re-
suit was l had the incest and hardest cabbage
that were ever raised. / had no trouble to
get ten cents per head, although cabbage was
very cheap here.-COr. Country Gentleman.