The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-11-26
AGRICULTURAL.
POINTS OF A GOOD COW,

| Yorker, gives the following as the chief
characteristic of good cow-the points
being SO well defined that any one can
make the selections. They are also in
accordance with the results of expert
once:
1.-THE extremities should be delicately
formed; the tail long and thin, except at
strong; the muzzle should be fine; the
head long, flat and thin, but broad across
the eyes, to give room for large brain,
which is the foundation for highly de-
veloped and active nervous system; the
horns fine, thin and neatly curved; the
eyes bright and active, agreeing with the
active brain, but calm, quiet and mild in
expression, significant of a quiet, con-
tented disposition, and one not readily
disturbed or worried. AS the secretions
of the body all come from the blood,
and as rich, yellow color is desired in
the butter, so the skin should be filed
with yellow pigment, and the inside of
the ears and the thighs, and the other
places where the hair is light and the
skin plainly visible, should be of rich
orange color, SO the scales or ear-wax
should be of the same color. The hair
should be fine, smooth and silky; and in
short the whole appearance should be
|
part with another and we'll balanced"
CONCERNING ONIONS.
| Onions are eaten to greater extent
| than any garden vegetables raised with
| the exception of cabbages. With many
| they serve the double purpose of food
| and condiment. Some persons who alb
hor their odor and dislike their taste eat
| them because they are nutritious and
conducive to health. In many portions
of Europe where land is scarce, and peo-
pie desire to produce all the food from it
| they can, onions are raised to a large ex-
tent. They take the place of butter and
| cheese in supplying a relish to coarse
| bread. They are sliced in vinegar and
eaten raw, made into soup, and cooked
boiling and frying. In the warm coun-
| tries of Southern Europe onions take the
place of cabbages and potatoes to a
great extent.
It is somewhat singular that onions are
| not fed in considerable quantities to
| poultry and all kinds of live stock.
Fowls of all varieties are extremely fond
of them, and derive great benefit from
eating them. Besides serving all the
purposes of true food, they aid digestion
| and tend to ward off disease. They may
| be fed raw or cooked. Chickens will eat
not only the bulbs, but the leaves when
Clipped up and mixed with dough.
| Chickens that are allowed onions pre-
| pared in this way rarely, if ever, are
| troubled with the cholera. Chickens
that eat onions are not likely to be in
tested by vermin. One of the best kinds
of food for laying hens during the winter
consists of cooked meat, potatoes and
onions. Onions are cheaper than pepper
to feed to poultry, and they answer the
same purposes.
| Almost all kinds of stock are fond of
onions, and there is generally consider
aole difficulty in keeping them from eat
ing them. OF course they shoull not be
fed to milk COWS, owing to the odor and
flavor they impart to milk but other kinds
of stock may eat onion, not only without
detriment, but with great advantage. All
animals delight in condiments, and there
is nothing in the line of relishes that
they will eat as readily as they will onions.
For young stock they should be Clipped
up and fed with grain and meal, but for
large animals they require no prepara-
tion. Onions that are large enough to be
salable in season when they are tolerable
| high are expensive food for stock, but
| there are always many that are too small
or ill-shaped to sell.
To grow onions on a large scale to ad-
vantage the ground should be prepared
| in the fall, as the seed should be planted
4 almost as soon as the frost leaves the soil
| in the spring. As onions are gross feed
ers the land on which they are planted
should be very heavily matured. To pre-
vent trouble with weeds the fertilizers
1 applied should be free from seeds, which
will ordinarily germinate before the
onion seed will. Well rotted stable
manure is excellent and so are the fer
tilizers prepared from meat. blood, and
osher slaughter-house refuse. Ashes and
salt are also good fertilizers for this
| to grow rapidly and the last will destroy
MANY insects. Coarse and rank manures
are not desirable.
Onions should not be harvested till
the weather becomes tolerably cool in
the fall, though they will ripen quite
| early in the season. The moisture
should be allowed to dry from them be-
fore they are stored away. They should
i be kept where the temperature is good
and is tolerably dry. If they are aided
1 by heat and moisture they will shrivel
| and become unfit for cookj-g purposes,
and, of course, for the ket. An
ordinary cellar is too md too
warm for preserving onions. ten
i sive onion grower makes, foA Aeep1ng
onions, as deep apt as he can with plow
/ in dry, sheltered place near the house.
scraping out all the loose dirt with hoe
and putting in some chaf or straw from
the straw stack, and tramping down well.
/ Then he hauls the onions from where
they grew, and piles them III carefully
on this, and puts more chaff on top and
covers up with foot of dirt from each
side and packs it smooth with the spade,
where they can remain part or all OF
the winter, or until wanted.
/. Experiments made in France by NM.
Savigny and Colineau have resulted in
| the production of some valuable dyes
from the common garden cabbage-that
| is they have succeeded in extracting from
red cabbage, or broccoli, a coloring mat
ter which is claimed to be absolutely in
offensive, and capable of application in
all the ordinary operations of painting,
i printing and dyeing. The leaves of the
i plant are for this purpose cut into small
i pieces, thrown into boiling water IN the
proportion of three pounds of the leaf to
three Itres of water, and there left to
maeerate for twentyfour hours; at the
end of this time they are withdrawn and
] subjected to strong pressure, the juices
]; expressed by this means being added to
the liquor infusion. As thus obtain ed,
4 the substance to which the name OF