The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-04-03
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.

III you want eggs In winter never
keep old hens. When q hen is three
years old the best use she can be put to
is to be turned into the soup pot. No
matter how well they are fed and at
tended to old fowls will not give eggs
in winter. Give fresh water, and SO
prevent them from drinking snow
water, which is very injurious to poul.
try.-Postltry Journal.
"A correspondent of an exchange
writes that he has MIXED COWS for thir-
ty years. and has found many that were
handy with their feet. The most ef-
fectual method Of preventing kicking,
he says, is the strap buckled tight
around the body just forward of the
hip bones and close to the forward
teats. They may dance a little on first
trial, but soon give it up and remain
quiet. After using it for time it can
be dispensed with; as they stand quiet
without it.
How to Plant Potatoes. num-
Der of bushels to the acre must of
course depend upon the size of the po-
tatoes and the way they are cut. If
planted in hills they should be about
three feet and ten inches apart each
way, and if in drills from fifteen to
twenty inches apart. If there is q
single eye in the piece it is sufficient,
although some people plant them whole
and others cut them in halves or quar-
ters. We have cut them in halves and
also in small pieces with one eye each,
and no potatoes ever yielded better
than those which grew from the small
one-eYed pieces Western Rural.
Pressed Beef.-Take about ten or
eleven pounds of the thin flank, and
rub we'll into every part two pounds of
salt, and half pound of moist sugar
mixed with saltpeter dissolved; re-
peat the rubbing with the pickle every
day for q week; and then roll it round
and bind it with wide piece of tape.
Have ready stewpan of scalding
water, put in the beef, and when It
SINNERS allow five hours for ten pounds
of meat. When sufficiently done, drain
off the water in which it was boiled,
and pour cold spring water over it for
six or eight minutes, drain it on q sieve
reversed, and then place it on board
with weight on it to press the meat
we'll. Then remove the tapes, trim it
neatly, and serve it when required
Western Rural.
White Soda Soft-Soap.-White en-
glish) caustic soda, four pounds; rem
dered tallow or grease, sixteen pounds.
Directions for making: Add -four or
five gallons of water to the soda, and
boil till the soda is melted or dissolved;
then add the grease and continue the
boiling gently from three-quarters to
one hour; keep adding water-a gallon
or two at q time-till it becomes like q
clear strip; then add the whole con-
tents of the kettle to a good tight bar
rel or cask of thirty or thirty-five gal
Ions capacity, and add warm water,
with a gallon of strong salt pickle, till
the barrel is full; stir It we'll together
for few minutes, and let it stand till
cold, when it gets hard. This quality
of soft-soap is largely consumed in the
large cities of the United States, and is
a pretty fair soap for ordinary pur-
poses.-N. Y Times.
S. L. F., in the Rural New Yorker,
has an idea about cleaning stables, or
raCher not cleaning them, that Will
rather astonish most farmers. He is
an old man; has read much, and prac-
ticed more, in the matter of saving ma
nure; has dug cisterns and drains; ex-
cavated barnyards to hold liquid ma
nure; devised plans for pumping and
delivering the same; has cleaned stables
and washed cows bags; pitched soiled
straw and cornstalks through fifteen
inch hole-and lived to find it all worse
than useless labor. He now simply
beds his cattle with plenty of straw
and cleans the stable whenever conve-
nient, usually only twice year. The
result is that COW keeps perfectly
clean, her milk is clean and the stable
is sweet. It is the same with horse,
and there is no complaint in the house
of stable smell about the clothes. The
animals have always soft, elastic he'd
under them, and all the manure is
saved. A neighboring milkman, who
stables 116 cows, follows the same
plan, and both COWS and stable are al
ways Clean and sweet.