The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1878-03-15
suggestive paragraphs which seem to
meet his own peculiar wants.

guarding squashes from insects consists
in planting as late as the 18th or Goth OF
June, so as to bring the plants up after
squash maggots have settled for the
season somewhere else.
No attempt should be made to put
colt to work until he is three years old,
and then better not exact any work be-
yond gentle exercising until he is four
and one-half years old. Although this
may not seem profitable at first, it viii
prove go in the end, for it will add six
years to horses working time.
If you want to keep your hogs, horses,
cattle and sheep healthy, give them salt
regularly. There is no better vermifuge
than salt. Much of the so called hog
cholera is due to intestinal worms. Plenty
of salt would prevent the accumulation Of
these worms. All animals desire salt,
showing that it is 3 want of their nature,
and undoubtedly for wise purposes
THE farmers IN Switzerland consider
liquid manure as the most efficacious of
any, and hence after the manure is fer
mented they dilute it in water and the
liquid alone is carried to the field and
scattered ..over it. The earth inmedi-
ately imbibes the liquid, which soon
reaches the roots of the plants and causes
a rapid vegetation. The straw that
remains after the manure has been
washed is applied as manure for potatoes.
HERE Is way we see suggested to de-
stroy stumps: Bore hole with two
inch auger TO the depth of six or eight
inches into the stump to be operated OF,
and place there in two ounces of silt
petre; then fill the hole with water and
plug it up perfectly tight. Next spring
take out the plug, pour in a gill of kero-
sene oil and set it on fire. The stump
will be entirely consumed, even to the
smallest roots, thus doing away with the
trouble of removing the debris, which
would be scattered about by the other
method.
MANY have an idea that there is
uOIHLlIE " 4uOlNlCA ~ It a oAANNNss14AA IA
farmer; that all they have to do is to
commence the business upon q large
scale, and success is bound to crown their
effarts. There are very few persons at
this day who are so foolish as to attempt
the practice of law or medicine, or
operate in any mechanical branch
of business, without due course of
preparation if they wish to succeed.
Every farmer should have at least a prac-
teal knowledge of his business, so as to
be able 70 decide what his land is best
adapted to, modes OF planting and culti-
walton, harvesting, marketing, etc.
1t hardly needs be said that if the seed
Is not good, no good crop can be hoped
Tor. The necessity for selecting seed
with care has been maxim of agricul-
ture for thousands of years. It is a good
plan to SOW, at least q small strip in the
field, with the best seed 70 be procured,
upon ground prepared in the best way,
and cut by itself at harvest, and thresh
it at once for seed. But if this pays,
why not grow the whole crop in the same
way? A good farmer should have no
grain that he cannot use for seed, none
that is poor, light, shrunken or mixed
with cookie and garlic.
LIEBIG makes the statement that
rainwster filtered through fields or gar
den soil does not dissolve out trace of
potash, silicic acid, ammonia or phospho-
ric acid. The soil does not give up to
the water one particle of the food of
plants which it contains. The most con-
tinueus rain cannot remove from the
field, except mechanically, any Of the
essential constituents Of its fertility.
The soil not only retains firmly all the
food of plants which is actually in it, its
power to preserve all that may be useful
to them also extends to withdrawing
from rain or other water all the ammo
mia, potash, phosphoric and ailicic acid in
solution.
WHERE farmers keep hired men, and
stormy days abound, they are frequently
at a loss to know how to put them to
work proftably. 1t is good plan to have
slate-in the Toulouse or barn or work
shop, and to note down during pleasant
weather what work can be done in rainy
weather. There are scores of little jobs
which suggest themselves which ought
to be done. and can be done IS well in
rainy weather as in fair weather. Such
slate would have upon it something like
the following: Clean out the cellar;
oil the harness mend harness; grease
all the wagons; repair the horse stalls
file the saws; grind the tools; sort the
apples; make kindling wood; repair the
implements; shell corn" a hundred
other like jobs could be suggested. Have
it understood that when a rainy day
comes, whether you are at home or not,
the slate is to be referred to and the work
done as there suggested.
a CORRESPONDENT of the Rural New
Yorker, speaking of the shiftless method
of farming in the west, says: at is the
fertility of our soil that
leads to this. 1t needs no manure for
its first crops, and the few years in which
it produces we'll without it are Just suf-
fcient time for farmers TO acquire lazy,
imp-ovident habits about taking care of |
their manure. 1t is a common thing to /
hear them ridicule eastern people about /
their economy in saving, composing and /
applying their manure to their lands .
trouble is, there are too many
producing corn, and the supply seems to
be greater than the demand in about five
years out of six. Every farmer here is
to make money to pay his
taxes, improve his farm, and pay the
accumulated debts of years, by growing
on half-worn~out old soil foul with cookie /
burrs, twenty and twenty-five cent corn.
Goodness Under Fire..
Toward the close of the fight of Inker.
MANN Lord RacIand ratII ry,;,,cr 6 I