Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1883-06-09
Agricultural Items.

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your trees, grapevines and rose bushes.
1t is a first-class fertilizer for all.
The narrowing of grain after sowing
develops on good land as much nitro
gen as could be got by dressing of
So worth of commercial manure per
acre.
The iron which is common in most
clay soils is an efiectual fentidote to
Paris green poison. The reddish color
Of clay soil is due to iron rust, and
where this is seen the poison of Paris
green is neutralized so soon as it
reaches the ground.
According to the reports of the Ma
tional Bureau of Agriculture, Indiana
now ranks as the first of the wheat
growing States, Ohio second and Hi
nois third. The yield of wheat in In
diana is 1876 bushels to the square
mile, and 1906 bushels to the acre.
Where land is covered with weeds it
seldom or never pays to let them grow
for the purpose of blowing under as
green manure. Almost all the weeds
are robbers of fertility, and only help
the soil by being turned to decay at as
early stage as possible.
Few farmers know that clover is one
of the best crops to clean out foul
weeds from their soil. Its rapid growth
enables it to smother all except the
strongest rooted perennials, and even
these it will greatly keep in check.
But it will only do this if cattle and
other stock are kept off at all times.
The pasturing system is the difficulty
many farmers have to contend against
in growing fruit. Where cattle are
allowed to run they occasionally go
where they are not wanted, besides
which many farmers are too pennywise
to risk losing mouthful of grass, even
though valuable trees are destroyed by
the grazing.
1t is singular fact that gypsum or
plaster of Paris is so little used. The
cheapest of all mineral fertilizers, and
the one best adapted to clover, its use
rarely extends far beyond the locality
where it is dug and ground. There its
cheapness insures large use by neigh
boring farmers, who find it very profit
able.
An acre of land contains 1850
square feet. To cover this with ma
nure two inches deep, as farmers some-
times tell of manuring their fields,
would require a pile of manure more
than thirty feet square and eight feet
deep, or nearly fifty-seven cords per
acre; very few farmers ever put Oh
that amount. The common OK cart
or wagon, holding thirty bushels Of
potatoes, needs to be heaped pretty
we'll to hold one,third of a cord of ma
nure.
Ben Perley Poore would have it I'm.
derstood that "the great enemy Of
farm implements is the borrower. Men
who call themselves Christians, good
citizens and kind neighbOrs, do not
hesitate to borrow reaper or NOW.
ing machine, and to leave it out Of
doors exposed to the destructive infu
ences of the weather, or to send it back
broken by the carelessness of some boy,
| have made it a rule for twenty years
past never to borrow an agricultural
implement of any description. 1t il
anold maxim, but true one, that "tht
borrower is worse than the thief"
The great staple of Japan is rice, EN-
ploying more than half the titled ares
in summer. The alluvial and lowlanC
spots average forty bushels per acre
and sometimes GO up as high as sixty
and seventy. Wheat, of the variety
known here as winter, is grown every
where, yielding twenty bushels pc
acre. 1t is grown in burrows, cult
waited by the mattock, cut by hano
knife, threshed by the fail, winnoweC
by hand and 'packed"ln sacks; groun'
in the most ancient of hand-mills.
is eaten in the form of unfermenteC
cakes. An unsuccessful attempt wa
once made to export it. Barley j
more important than wheat, and
grown and used in much the sam
way.
One of the most efficient substance
fnr destrOvinu insects il hisulnhide +