Brenham weekly banner. [volume] (Brenham, Tex.) 1877-1907, 1879-06-13
HOME AND FARM.
Agricultural Items.

Most OF the diseases of cattle are eau
scd by wrong treatment-too much feed at
one time, 500 little al another, TO rich at one
tine, too poor at another. If cattle aid
hurse5 were fed, and watered, and used
properly tn re would be little disease.
= Make shallow basin in the ground
not far from the kitchen, and fill with coal
ashes as is il made, and on this throw night
slops, wash water etc. An immense
amount Of the very best of fetizers can be
made in this way.
- Pure air and water arc of even more
importance than exercise in the care Of
young animals. They are often huddled
together in houses altogether insufficient in
size, and in which the atmosphere is al
most constantly impure from the product
ofrespiration.
To clear cistern water add two ounces
powdered alum and too ounces borax TO a
twenty-borrel cistern of rain water that is
blackened or oily, and in few hours the
sediment will settle and the water be clari-
fed and fit for washing, and even for cook
ing purposes.
= Trees standing in grass, if near hog
pen, barnyard or other rich spot often
SiOW anu bCshi nun NlAehi IA ASoDNNt-
TO those which have received the very best
cultivation; which fact would certainly in
dicate that trees which fail to bear well in
grass, fail chiefly because they are starv-
ed. .------
= From carefully prepared estimates it
is aScerfained that the wheat crop in Ohio
and Indiana bids fair TO be unusually fine.
Reports from almost every country in these
States have been made, and nearly all of
them are in the same tenor. The apple
and peach prospect, however, is very
poor
- II, after the wool has grown TO some
considerable length, sheep or lambs become
annoyed with lice or ticks, wash the lambs
in strong decoction of tobacco. Another
way is to take pair of bellows and inhalc
tobacco smoke, then blow the smoke with
a considerable force among the ticks. This
viii prove instant death.
The liquid yielding of animals are
worth more-good authority say one sixth
more-pound for pound, than the solid ex-
cremenis, and they are saved with greater
care by the best European farmers and
gardeners. All the leaks in the stable arc
not in the roof; those often in the floor are
quite as Objectionable and are the cause of
a great deal Of waste.
: In preparing ground for squashes,
put liberal amount Of manure in each hill
and cover it with two inches Of soil. Then
cover the whole with coal ashes with which
the whole is filed, and the boil on the ma
nure covered. The seed are then planted
in the ashes directly over the manure. At
each hoeing, acatter fresh supply of ash
es around the plants, and grubs will never
trouble the plants.
= Confinement and want of occupation
are among the chief couses why fowls eat
feathers. The former is often inevitable in
winier, but the latter can be avoided by
buying some of their grain food in sand
and allowing them to hunt for it, which
will afford them pastime and healthy occu-
patton. Give them some green food; fresh
meat two or three times a week, burnt
homes, oyster shells, charcoal, clear water
and clean hcnnery, and if all this doesn't
cure them of the habit, wiring their necls,
for they are incurable.
Speaking of tanning with the fur on,
an English writer tells the Country that he
has CATS skin. pliable as kid, free from
smell and the hair still clinging firmly,
which TO years ago was dressed according
to his receipt, which he says is equally safe
and unfai.ing in all such cases: Nail the
fresh shin tightly and smoothly against the
door, keeping the skinning side out Next,
with a broad bladed blunt knife. then
scrape all loose pieces Of flesh and fat, then
rub it much chalk and be not sparing of
labor; when the chalk begins to powder
and fail of take the skin down, NIL it with
finely ground alum, wrap closely together
and keep SO for two or three days; at the
end of that time unfold it, shake out the
alum and the work is done.
- The majority of people have no idea
OF the great service done 10 the florist far
mer and gardner by the birds, and in many
cases they are abused and prosecuted to
an unreasonable and cruel extent. Each
variety of bird has natural duties to per-
form in the great economy of nature, and
If they were all removed from the earth it
would soon be impossible for the human
race to exist; insects would soon become so
numerous that not only vegetation, but
every other living thing would soon sue
cumb 10 them. Many men of sound sense
and much experience, attribute the whole
sale destruction occasioned by grasshop-
pers; which so short time ago devastated
the entire west, to the indiscriminate
''thinning-out'' CT birds, such as prairie
chickens, quail, ETC., which feed almost en-
tirely on insects. Protect the birds; the
small amount Of corn and fruit you will
lose in one season is more than compensa-
ted for by the quantity of insects they will
destroy. They are all useful-eyen the
much abused crow has its mission, and all
the others are equally worthy of the farm
er's protection.