The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-07-18
FARM, GARDEN AND HOUSEHOLD.
Termination on seeds.

There are few common principles
connected with the termination OF seeds
which are familiar to many, but which
are nevertheless worthy of being placed
on record, and which may be interest
ing and instructive to those who have
not given special attention to the SUBJ
ject.
The three great leading requisites for
termination are warmth, moisture and
air but not light. Seeds deprived of
these requisites will remain dormant. If
the plants are very hardy, such as the
chickweed, and the rye and wheat plant,
they will start ut few degrees above
the freezing point. Others less hardy,
as Indian corn and beans, must have
higher temperature, and if the soil is
too cold, they will rot instead of grow
ing. Hot-house plants require still
greater heat, many of which will not
germinate below eighty or ninety de-
grees of Fahrenheit.
Moisture is very essential, .s every
farmer knows who has sown wSeat and
grass seed in time of q severe drought.
Flower seeds sown in dry garden bed,
yegetate rapidly if the sowing is follow
ed by warm shower, which furnishes
the two elements for success, warmth
and moisture. Many seeds are deprived
of this essential requisite when they are
allowed to become too dry by long ex-
posure to the air.
Seeds must have air, or they will not
grow. Buried deep in the soil, they re-
main dormant for long time, although
kept at nearly uniform temperature
with the soil, to retain their natural
moisture. Nurserymen sometimes keep
peach stones in a sound and dormant
condition, buried Two feet or more in
compact earth. Many of the most trou-
blesome annual weeds make their appear
ance in ground supposed to be clean.
The careless farmer has allowed weeds
to ripen seeds by The ten thousand in
previous years, and turned them in deep
by plowing. There they have re-
mained dormant till another blowing
has brought them to the surface, where
they soon appear by myriads, to the sur
face of the owner, who, if he is ignorant
Of the nature OF vegetable growth.
ascribes their appearance to spontaneous
vegetation.
Large seeds, like those of peas, corn,
ETC., will find their way to the surface if
buried several inches below ground,
although they grow more freely at less
depth. Small seeds must be much
nearer the surface. The seeds of most
of our worst annual weeds, such as pig
weed, green amaranth, fox tail, rag
weed and mustard, are quite small,
and will not grow if buried in compact
soil over an inch in depth. This is the
reason that when the ground once be-
comes infested, it takes 80 long time
to eradicate them. The plowing and
the narrowing must be repeated many
times. until every part OF the soil, down
as far as the plow reaches, is successive
ly exposed to the action of the air. In
this way crop after crop of weeds is
destroyed, until the soil is purged OF
them. 1t ia much easier and less ex-
pensive to prevent their growth, and
never allow them to drop ripe seeds.
Garden seeds often fail to germinate
because they are buried too deep. Some
years ago an amateur planted his best
seeds, taking great pains, and burying
them three inches deep. They could
not grow. A part remaining, were after
wards planted an inch deep, and they
came up in profusion. The old rule, to
cover seeds at depth not exceeding five
times their diameter, will apply, with
some variation, to nearly all, and if gen.
orally observed, would often prevent
failure. Country Gentleman.
Poultry Notes.
When turkeys are two months old
they can successfully withstand the Sc
verest weather, if dry. In wet weather
they should be confined in yard under
cover.
1t is said that lice may be kept from
poultry by placing pieces of the bark of
sassafras root in their nests.
Good settlers among hens seldom or
never leave their nests more than once a
day, provided they are well fed when
they come off; while they seldom remain
away longer than from quarter to half
an hour, rarely exceeding the latter
period, unless food has! mot been sup
piled and they have to forage for them
selves.
"Dry feed for your chicks" says the
Poultry World, and among other things
it adds: sit is absolutely indispensa.
BILE that the cooked mash given to any
young chickens should be mixed dry.
By this we mean to convey the sugges.
tion that the meal mixture should be of
a crumbly consistency rather than that
OF the swashy, soggy kind of muck that
nine out of ten careless or inexperienced
persons give to the young broods in
their infancy"
The best Of all soils on which to es-
tablish poultry yard is gravel or sand
resting on substratum of gravel. If
the soil is clayey, or from other causes
retentive Of wet, the whole should be
we'll drained. This is essential to sue
cess, as a wet soil is more inducive than
any other circumstance of cramp, roup-
and other diseases.
Chicken Cholera.
For few years my chickens died 80
badly that / abandoned all care of
them, thinking it labor lost. In 1872 I
commenced feeding with air-slaked
lime lost very few that summer.
In the summers of 1873 and 1874 lost
none at all by that disease. I put half
a pint in vessel and fill it with water
or milk and put for them to drink. AS
they drink off the top l fill up again.
Sometimes I mix half pint with
peck of stirred up feed and give them.
The lime helps to form the shell for
laying hens. give the lime two or
three times per month, and always if
see any signs of the disease. I raised
about twenty dozen last summer, and
healthier, brighter looking chickens
never owned Western Agriculturist.