Connecticut western news., 1885-06-03
FARM AND GARDEN.
LEAVES FROM THE EXPERIENCE
 OF PRACTICAL FARMERS.
Protecting CnbbHRes from worms-CHre of DucklinEs-ApplyinG Fertilizers 10 Corn.


 PROTECTING CARRIAGES FROM WORMS. Take dry earth and sift over the plants as often as three or four times 8 week until the last of August, and the worms will not meddle with the leaves and the rains will wash all the dust off Strong brine poured over them and the roots is an excellent fertilizer, as the cabbage is a native of salt localities and enjoys having salt baths. A sprinkling of dry salt when the plants are wet with rains or dew is an excellent plan, as it gives them vigor and color. To prevent worms on fruit trees take strips of turf five or six inches long and three or four inches wide and press into the crochets Of the tree made by the limbs branching out from the body of the tree. Let them remain through the warm weather; when taken out in the autumn burn them, as they will be found to contain countless eggs of in. sects that will make mischief for the next year if allowed to hatch out Sarah II. Roi0eU, Randolph, V
 APPLYING FERTILIZERS TO CoRN.-It is quite reasonable to suppose that plants can be gorged with food as ani- malls may be, and that injury may re- suit from it. This is quite true as re- gards corn. The corn plant has long season of active growth. It requires about one hundred days for its maturity. If all the food which is required to ma ture that plant is added to the soil in a soluble and available condition at the planting, large quantity may be lost before the plant can utilize it. Soluble fertilizers diffuse themselves in a moist soil with great rapidity, and are quickly carried of by the drainage water into the subsoil. Sir J. B. Lawes has noticed the nitric acid of nitrate of soda, which had been applied to the surface soil, es- caping in the water flowing from the drains, in forty-eight hours after appli- cation. If then, six hundred pounds of this fertilizer should be applied to the corn crop before the sowing of the seed, it will begin to be lost before a single root has been formed to arrest its es- cape. This fact is given only as an in- stance of how fertilizers may be lost by misapplication. At the best, an excess of fertilizing material given to corn in it's early stages. forces a rank growth of of stalk, and the plant food is exhausted before it can be converted into grain, which is the most valuable part of the crop. During some years past we have been growing corn under a new system of fertilizing, which is to apply the fer tilizer at intervals, as after each time of cultivation, instead of before and imme- diately after the planting. The effect has been to notably increase the yield of grain, and decrease the growth of stalk. By this method, eighty bushels | of grain per acre have been produced, and in growing sweet corn for sale, fine, large, and we'll filled ears are secured. The fertilizer is dusted along the rows before the cultivator is used, or imme- diately after, and the first shower carries it down to the roots. The same method of applying fertilizers has been used fol root crops with favorable results.
 CARE OF DUCKLINes. - How should young ducks be cared for from matching till old enough to care for themselves Answer: The usual method is to have the ducks matched by hens; aftel matching for ten days or two weeks, i the weather is warm, the hens should be kept in coops with board floors vel filtered with cut straw. The proper food is boiled potatoes and hominyl boiled eggs and boiled liver or other animal food, and all the food given them should be well cooked. During this period the ducklings should have plenty of clean drinking water, but should not be allowed to swim, especially if the weather is at all cold. After this time they may be allowed to run during th' day but should be shut in warm cooI with dry floor, and be well fed a night. If allowed about a pond ol stream infested with mud turtles, many of the young ducks will be caught b. their heads or feet. and drowned.
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