The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1884-03-29

tons.
The largest COW in America, it is
believed belonos to John Pratt. OF
Chase county, Kansas. She is three
years old, twenty-five hands high, and
weighs 8, POO pounds.
The two first varieties of early pears
are said to be the All ha and the Amer
lean Wonder, the former hardly a
dwarf, but the most delicious, and the
latter very dwarf and prolific.
In California considerable fruit is
canned in the orchard where it grows,
the canned product bearing transpor-
tation better than the fruit which has
to be shipped even short distance
from the factory.
A farmer writes to ask how many
inches of cream it takes to make a
pound of butter. 1t varies with the
different cans used, but many Of them
are gagged for one pound OF butter to
an inch of cream.
The Stock Journal says: Horses
which are bred on fiat, soft. rich
soils never grow the clear. tough hoofs,
ivory-like bones and powerful muscles
that those do which are reared on n
dry and somewhat billy region"
A correspondent of the New York
Tribune says that any one who allows
his fruit trees to slowly starve to death
and then adds insult to injury by blam-
inc them for not rewarding his indo-
lence with bountiful crops deserves to
be debarred from good fruit the re-
mainder of his life.
A writer in the Prairie Farmer re-
lates that drain put down in 1858, OF
common fence boards, is still in good
condition, and that if he had to make
short, deep drains, with plenty OF fall
and through compact or yellow clay,
he should certainly use "A siX-inch fence
board believing it would answer every
purpose of a three or four-inch drain
tile.
The New York Times says that lime
seems to be preventive of rot in po-
tatoes in the cellar. Some potatoes
that were rotting and were picked out
of a heap of forty or fifty bushels were
nut into corner and well busted with
air-slaked lime. They stopped rotting
at once, and the decayed parts are now
dried up. There is no disagreeable
smell about them.
The president of the Northwestern
cider and vinegar ASSOCIATION, at ITS
recent annual meeting, said that to
have cider that will keep sweet, it must
be made of ripe winter apples. Re
move all the pomace possible. rack of
and leave the residue in the barrel.
This will do for use in early winter.
He had kept it much later by adding
one ounce of salicylc acid to the bar
rel. Had also used antiseptic, but
could not tell which was best.
A restless disposition in horse is
often very annoying and generally hard
to overcome. One thing noticeable
about it is that such disposition gen.
orally belongs to a horse which is de-
ficient of real good horse sense; hence
the lack of good foundation on which
to begin reform. Kind treatment
and quiet handling are about the best
trea ment that can be prescribed in
such cases. One thing is positive, that
the roughcr they are handled, the more
lab lnev are to become nervous and
exci,aDle. - Western Agyicuittir.St.
A pest which renders bee keeping
quite hazardous at present is little
insect rcscm bling both the small louise
and the red spider of the green house
The insect lives upon the bodies OF the
bees to the number of twenty or more
on a single bee, and sucks their life
away. They are carried from one hive
to another by contact of bees with each
other while gathering honey from the
flowers. Not much is yet known as to
the best methods of fighting the para
'ites.
A farmer who tested the waste from
o threshing machine by running the
chatf, supposed to be free from grain,
: through the tanning mill, obtained 70
per cent. of whole crop by SO dong
The manager OF paper mill says he
always expects to obtain 10 per cent.
Of the cost of the straw he buys from
} the grain left in it. There is lesson
here for farmers to heed, to be less in
haste about thrcshing, and to see that
the feeding is slow enough to insure a
perfect Smelling of the grain.
Turkeys do not require as warm
quarters in winter as do other fowls.
However cold the weather, they should
be allowed to run out of doors every
! day, except, perhaps, in very stormy
weather, If confined in warm quarters
and not allowed to run out of doors,
they usually show signs of indisposi'
ton, lose their appetite, become dump
ish and inactive, and not infrequently
die They are very hardy birds and
easily wintered. About all they re.
quire is n place to roost at night where
they will be out Of the wind, plenty &c
eat and drink and their liberty during
the day.
The Country cent cnldn says two
things are necessary for the growing
of good asparagus, namely, plenty o
room for the plants to grow, and copi
Gus manuring. The latter is best APP
piled to thick beds by covering tho
whole surface with manure two or three
inches thick, late in autumn, and fork
ing it in very early in spring, before
the new shoots start. Thick beds, how
ever, should not be planted, but thu