The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1884-12-05
For the Farmer.

Southdown sheep make the best mutt,
ton.
1t is well to occasionally spade up
the hen yards.
At the farm of the Illinois Industrial
University at Champaign there are
over 1000 different varieties of apple
trees.
Professor Paaren, Illinois State Vet
erinarian, considers the use of bearing
or check-reins as cruelty to horses, and
binders he thinks useless.
Recent thorough investigation shows
that paris green is not absorbed by POI
tato plants, but the ground on which .
great amount is put is rendered less
fertile.
In skimming the cream off from milk,
says an old dairyman, tkere should al
ways be milk enough SKINNED with
the cream to give the butter, when
churned, a bright, clean look.
In Northern Dakota, recently, trac-
ton engine drew eight plows, turning
sod four inches thick as evenly and
well as could be done by horse power,
and at rate of over twenty-five acres
a day.
Mr.. Joseph Harris, an authority on
sheep-raising,. says he finds no more
trouble in raising early lambs than late
ones. He would rather have his lambs
come in January and February than in
April and May.
1t is said that the development of
flavor can be FASTENED by subjecting
the cheese to a strong current of air.
The flavor is developed by the process
of oxidation. If the cheese is Kept in
too close air during the process of cur
ing, it will be likely to be deficient in
flavor.
The american Agriculturist has de-
scription of barrel barrow for. carry
ing liquids. A barrel, open at the top,
is fitted into the frame of an ordinary
barrow with cleats, about one-third be-
ing below the top of the frame. 1t can
be advantageously employed in carry
ing Stops to hogs or cattle and water
for plants. '.-
Sheep in orchards, says a horticul-
turist, are better than swine to eat fall
len apples infested with insects, as they
are more thorough and vigilant in
picking up, and devour all that fall;
they do not, like swine, leave the small
and wormy ones and take the best, but
they cat all alike. and they never root
up the ground of the orchard.
1t is stated in French agricultural
journals that French cheese-makers
are not satisfied unless they get from
$3.50 to 5000 per annum from each cow.
This is owing to their experiences and
thoroughness in the manufacture of
cheese, and each particular agricul-
tural district of France has attained a
celebrity for the making of some par
ticular variety of cheese, developing
into special and important industry.
A writer in the New York Tribune
says he has found good method to
trap wire worms to be by putting
pieces of potatoes in the ground with a
stick stuck in them 10 mark their DO
sition. The worms gather on the DO
tatoes and are quickly destroyed. This
year wire worms were DESTROYING Pro-
fessor Tracy's melon and cucumber
vines by eating off the roots. He put
the potato trap in the soil and thus
saved the vines from destruction.
The common garden toad is an ami
NAL that is easily domesticated, and
most interesting pet says correspond
ent of the Gardeners Aonthy For
several years MY mother allowed one
to enter her kitchen, where it fed with
great zeal upon the house-flies 1t be-
came so tame that it would readily
take flies from the fingers of any mem
Der OF the family. AT present l have
one which is living in cool hole in nv
bed of young cabbage plants, and it is
doing good WORK in keeping away the
dies, which are SO troublesome to the
plant. Toads and little snakes are of
value in destroying insects in the gar
den.