Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1885-04-03
Farm and Garden Notes.

Farm and Garden Notes.
All animals should be fed at regular
hours.
A row of apple or peach trees in the
fence corners is special treasure to the
farmer,
To prevent pear blight, trim off nearly
all the new wood before the trees freeze
in the fall.
Piums can often be raised by yarding
poultry under the trees to pick up the
curculious.
Every apple should be saved and fed
to stock in the winter, if no better market
for it can be found.
Sheep are even better than swine in the
orchard to prevent the dropping apples
from filling the ground with worms for
next years insects. They will hear the
falling apple and run an devour it before
the worm has time to leave it.
Cattle ought never to drink from stag
nat pools, which almost always swarm
with germs of disease. The study of
splenic fever in cattle has clearly de-
monstrated that this fatal disease is
caused directly from impure water.
For the improvement OF heavy soils
Hetden, Voigt, Guntz and Wetzke re-
commend lime for the first dressing.
They say also that the crop for the first
season should be potatoes; for the Sec
ond, oats; for the third, tares or peas,
and for the fourth, potatoes again.
In looking over the seed box for spring
planting, melon and cucumber seeds
need not be rejected on accout of their
age. In fact, the older they are the bet
ter fruit they will produce. 1t is per-
haps true that these old seeds will not
make as strong plants, hence they will
not run to vine rather than to fruit, as
fresh seeds on highly MANFRED land
sometimes do.
Poultry should have plenty of light.
1t is rather significant fact that the
laying season, with most fowls, is during
the time of year when days are longest.
Make them warm as possible in winter,
but do not do it by confning hens in
dark and damp places, which will en-
gender disease. If possible have south
windows, so that hens may get sunshine
in the middle of the day..
Cows we'll fed and which yield n large
proportion of cream to their milk, al
ways make hard butter, even in warm
weather In such COWS and on such feed
part of the fat which usually goes into
suet passes into the milk veins and is
converted into butter. This is really
a cowmade oleomargarine, and contains
less of the essential oils which give grass
butter its excellent flavor and aroma.
Root fungus on shrubs and trees may
be destroyed by the use of sulphur The
practice of destroying dangerous fungus
parasites in the Old World by the use of
sulphur is quite common. The chestnut
trees in the neighborhood of Nantes,
France, have suffered severely, many be-
ing wholly destroyed. BY laying bare
the roots and sprinkling with sulphur
before reflling the earth, the trouble has
been arrested.
A pullet's egg will hatch, if properly
fcrtilized, as we'll as the egg of an old
hen. Most Of the very early eggs are apt
to be from pullets. They will be smaller
in size, and until the pullet has got its
growth the egg shell will be thinner
showing that much of the lime material
in the food has gone to build up the
frame. Because thinner shelled the
pullet's egg should only be set under
hens that will make careful mothers.
Lime in some form is indispensable to
the formation of egg shells. 1t is more
generally supplied to hens in the form of
old mortar broken shells and broken
bones. Either generally sutficcs, but all
are better than either alone. Soft and
thin-shelled eggs are generally, but not
always, the result of an insufficient sup
ply of lime, and egg-eating among hens
is generally caused by neglect to
supply this essential element of egg pro-
duction.
The introduction of the silo is likely
to make considerable change in agri-
cultural methods. in England, where,
owing to wet weather and late frosts,
corn cannot be brought to maturity, corn
is now sown for fodder and cut when the
plant is in tassel, yielding thirty tons to
the acre. The fodder is preserved in
silos, and the corn is out of the way in
time for a late crop of turnips. The
English farmers find corn the best cror
they can raise for fodder
A mixture of two gallons of crude pc.
troleum oil with one gallon of fish oil,
combined with any cheap paint, makes
an excellent preservative for farm build
ings and implements. The fish oil il
better than linseed, as it does not pene
tratc so deeply, and the same quantity
will go further. A gallon of this paint
will cover 100 Square feet of shingles
1t should be used Literally, and one ap