Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1881-11-30
AGRICULTURAL HINTS.

twenty parts gypsum, three or four of
qu1ckl1me, and one of carbolic acid,
sprinkled thinly over the leaves when
wet with dew or rain, repeating the ap-
pl1cat1On as often as necessary, which
may be a number of times.
JAMES MORRIS, a farmer, living a
short distance east of Ogdensburg, N.
Y, tried the experiment of putting his
corn through threshing machine, and
is greatly pleased with the result It
cut the stalks fine and produce d forty
five bushels of shelled corn to the acre.
Mr.. Morris says: Twill never husk
and shell another crop, but will send it
all through the threshing machine"
The SCOT of soft, or rather bitumin-
GUS coal busted upon onions when wet
with dew is said to be a remedy for the
maggot. The mother fly closely resem-
bles the house fly. AS SCOT is a good fer
tilizer nothing is lost by it's application,
even if it does not always destroy the
maggot it might be well to try SCOT de-
rived from the burning of pitch pine or
other soft wood.
AN eminent naturalist, the Rev. J. G.
Wood, of England, thus writes of the
cruelty inflicted on the horse by the
check-rein: People see the horse
champing its bit, finging foam flakes
right and left, tossing it's head, rafting
it's harness, and assume that the horse is
acting in the pride of its strength and
fulness of spirit, whereas it is suffering
agonies of pain, and is trying to gain
by these movements momentary relief.
MANURE should be forked over occa-
sionally to make it fine. If it is heating
then muck or loan should be mixed with
1t to absorb the amount which is formed
during the process of decomposition.
Sprinkling the manure pile with ground
plaster is advisable. The plaster will
absorb any ammonia which escapes
from the pile, and save it for the use of
growing plants. Ammonia is too valu-
able an element of plant food to allow it
to be wasted. Again, upon some land
plaster is an excellent fertilizer.
The absorbtive powers of charcoal are
SO great that it will absorb about eighty
times more gas than its own measure
ment. 1t is to this quality that it owes
it's efficacy when given to bloated ami
mails, and nothing equal to it was ever
given or has ever been discovered in
such cases. Few of our readers but are
doubtless aware how magnifcently it
acts in human complaints, and to such
it is recommended in diseases of domes-
tic animals, and especially of swine,
with just as much confidence of it's being
a success as when given to human be-
ings.
POULTRY raising is profitable branch
OF business for persons of small capital,
and especially so for farmers who have
help that can not perform very hard
work. Much of the food consumed by
fowls can be raised at very small cost.
Geese will live several months in the
year on grass and clover, and all kinds
of fowls will eat buckwheat, sunhower
seed, as well as the seed of millet, Hun
garian and broom corn. Turkeys can
be proftably kept in the vicinity of
beech-wood, as they are very fond of the
nuts, which are produced without COST
They want wider range than chickens,
and can not be kept in confinement.
A CANADIAN agriculturist last season
tried an experiment with potatoes that
is worth noting. It was done by SCOOP
ing out every eye from potato, and in
serting in the flesh of it single eye,
carefully cut from another potato of q
different kind, and planting the seed
thus prepared, obtaining thereby very
curious crosses, which he exhibited at
the Toronto industrial exhibition. The
tubers were small as the first years pro-
duct from seed, and appear to partake of
| the characteristics of both the original
varieties. Whether they will reproduce
themselves the second year or revert to
one or another of the original types is
yet to be determined.
IT is stated by an English writer that
he finds it important to thicken gas tar
by boiling before applying it to the
when cold it will barely soak through
the clothes used in applying it. If too
thin it goes into the bark of the trees; if
thick it remains outside and does no
harm. 1t is applied by using cloth in
the hand, and 400 or 500 trees are treated
by man in day. It should be
remarked that there is much less danger
of injury to old, hard barked trees than
to young trees that have a soft green
bark, and there is less danger in cool,
moist climate than undera hot and burn
| ing sun.
We have, says the Cincinnati Gazette,
raspberry bed which the past season
demonstrated the advantages of mulch
ing. In the fail dead leaves were raked
up and strewn among the canes, and
during last winter the coal ashes re-
leased from CRATES and cooking stoves
were thrown Systematically on and along
their roots, and early in the spring a
thorough cleansing Of the bed and vines
were instituted. The ground was well
stirred, and then the depositing of ashes
recommended. Whether the last opera
ton was beneficial or not in checking
the growth of the weeds, the whole rou-
tine certainly worked well in the pro-
duction of a fine crop of berries.
JERSEY ISLAND, the place from which
we obtain the favorite Jersey COW, is a
small spot of land. IF squared, it is six
on1 ~ N, ~