Connecticut western news., 1880-02-11
FARM AND GARDEN.
FEEDING LINsEED MEAL.

chewing put no amman CAn SWALLOW fine, dry food without chewing 1t and mixing it with saliva. The saliva has considerable solvent powers, and exer- cises an important office in the digestive process. It is a highly complex fluid, containing potash, soda. lime, ptyaline "a substance which changes starch in- to sugar-and alkaline chlorides, phos- phates and sulphates. One function of the saliva is evidently to prepare food for digestion, and in feeding, this should always be considered. Food bolted or gorged is unmixed with saliva, and thus theoretically the food should be given dry, so that it may be masticated and mixed with saliva; practice proves the truth of the theory. Linseed has lax ative and softening effect, and the meal may be given alone beneficially. It is good for any fattening animal, but for hogs it is dear food as compared with corn Hogs fatten better on corn, or other starohy food, than on such oily food as linseed.
 PLANTING CORN ON SOD LAND.
 A friend of the Rural NeaO Yorker, MT. N. O. Jessop, of Long Island, wAo is noted for raising large crops of corn, pursues the following method of culture: He invariably plants his corn on sod land. In blowing the ground he takes care to blow in a straight line. The land is marked crosswise, and the corn is planted in the intersection of these markings with every furrow, dropping little pulverized manure in each hill. No harrow is allowed on the land before the corn is planted. By this method the soil does not become so compact as if narrowed fine, and the soil will rot quicker. If the weeds should start be- fore the corn, light narrowing length wise will check their progress and not hurt the corn. He says he has followed this method for several years with sig nal success. At first his neighbors ridi- culed it, but, somehow, they are now beginning to plant corn on sod land, and to use the harrow sparingly.
 YOUNG STOCK.
 It is now time that the farmer should turn his attention to his young stock and such COWS as are dry and are ex- pected to come in within month or six weeks. If young heifers are expected to come in this spring they should have good English hay. Some farmers feed to their horses or sell their best hay when it would pay them better to feed it to their stock. Cows and heifers fed well two or three months before calving, would pay it back three months after calving. The best of hay will make the best of manure after being fed to stock, while poor hay, bog hay, will not only make poor manure but poor animals. Thrown under the COWS for bedding such material will keep them warm and will absorb, the urine, and if turned under the soil will make decent fer tilizer and mechanically improve the condition of the land, in this way be- coming equally as valuable as if it had been used in half-starving the stock.
 DEATH TO THE ouRRANr WORM.
 mean the pale green worm from half to fve-eights of an inch long with a black head but why it should be called by the above name, never could un- derstand for never knew it to touch the currants as long as there were goose berries near. After submitting to the destruction of my large English goose berries for two or three years, looked up the biography of this insect, and finding that it hibernated in the ground under the bush, applied in the spring plaster of lime-mortar around the base of the bush over circle of eighteen to twenty-four inches in diameter. That season I saw only one of the pests, and none for four years after. Mildew, how ever, set in strong, but my experience leads me to believe that sulphur, if faithfully applied, will most certainly prevent and even stop that; but it is safest to use it as preventive.
 PUMPKINS AMONG CORN.
 The pumpkin is good to fatten stock, particularly cattle, and is better yet as supplement to other feed, supplying in & measure the place of roots. But is it advisable to grow it If so, should it be as separate crop, or associated with corn9 AS crop by itself it would probably not pay. Its, place, if any where, should be, it seems, where the practice has put it--among the corn. The question is, will it be of more bene- fit to raise two oross together, or ban ish the pumpkin? Immemorial prac- tice has thus far sanctioned the coup ling. Large crops of corn and pump kins have thus been raised, but be- lieve not the biggest of corn. A neigh bor, during the past summer, grew sev- enty bushels of corn per acre, with a corresponding quantity of pumpkins. The question is, how much more corn, if any, would have been raised without tue pumpkins? I do not know that g test has ever been made. But why should it notp The practice of grow. ing the two crops together is extensive, and it is therefore of importance to know. Corn is crop that requires clean cul. ture and the ground to itself. The pumpkin is an intruder, but it hardly comes under the head of weeds. These occupy the ground, while the pumpkin only covers it with it's breads leaves not abstraoting any strength from the soil between the rows as do the weeds and grasses. The vine shades the ground thus fsvoriug moisture, and at time when drouth is usually severe, obstruct ing also to some extent the growth O weeds. Being near the ground, it doe' not interfere with the sun and air upo1 the corn, leaving the ear fully exposed en imnOrEsnt diff f9renoe between pum n