Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-03-26
paiIu kenneber 3ournal.
Agricultural Items.

1t has been estimated that more than
one-half of the food consumed BY farm
animals in our winter months IS required
to keep up the natural heat.
One reason so few people get eggs
while the ground is frozen or covered
with snow. is. they do not provide their
hens with lime or gravel. Old BONES
crushed, pieces of plastering, ETC.. FUR
nish shell forming material. Keep a we'll
supplied box where it will be easy OF ac-
cess at all times.
The best fertilizer for an orchard IS
potash. either in the form OF WOOD asnes
or as sulphate OF potash. Trees, however,
will be benefited by superphosphate ana
manure. but the best results are obtained
when potash is used as the principal in
gredient in the fertilizers on the soil tor
an orchard.
A French agriculturist recommends
throwing fresh manure from the horse
stable into the poultry house, IN cold
weather Ii not only imparts warmth,
bul gives the fowls employment IN scratch
ino ID over. In default OF this material
DRY, clean straw is suggested tie also
recommends removing the roosts IN ex-
tremelv cold weather, and letting the
fowls hover in the straw at night.
G.. W Truesdale. a western Massachu-
sets dairyman, in feeding cows. gives a
diet OF hay, bran and cob meal does not
feed cotton seed meal would not give
milch cows all the hay they will eat !;
prefers grade Jerseys for butter makers {;
would not have a poor mixer in his en-
Dloy if he would work for nothing; sets
his milk in pans that stand from twenty
four to thirty-six hours before skimming.
His time to sell beef is when he can get
the most profit on it, which is at the age
If twelve to fifteen months Had calves
at that age that dressed 40 pounds and
573 pounds.
We learn from the Prairie Farmer that
il costs, at present, twelve cents bushel
10 transport wheat from Chicago to the
seaboard, ~ nine cents to ship it to Eng
lish ports fro, New York; making the
cost OF sending bushel OF wheat from
Chicago to England about twenty cents.
The Liverpool selling price is just about
an even dollar. while quotations in Chi
cago for same day were 10 . cents "A
bushel. In seasons of open navigation
wheat may be sent from Chicago to Eng
land for from eight to ten cents bushel
Wheat has not been SO low in England
tor a century.
1t is pretty generally allowed that the
incubators will hatch chickens, "Topsy"
fashion. but the raising of the little things
is altogether different matter.
although it can be done with care ard
experience. In setting hens. don't for
get to put a little sulphur in the nest. to
keep off the vermi::. Many hens leave
their nests after setting a couple of weeks,
simply on account of lice. Keep clear OF
lice, is good theory, and it will be insisted
upon by all professional breeders; but
farmers often neglect this important thing
when poultry is not specially with them.
In travelling we have seen boards and
poles spiked to growing trees as substi-
tutes for posts. In certain way there IS
economy in this. provided the trees are
not of valuable sort and the farm is kept
in the same family for generations
Should such farms change hands and the
spikes be drawn to mill in the middle of
saw logs they might become fruitful
source of trouble between the farmer and
mill owner. Great care should be exer-
ciScd in sending logs to mill or market
where there is liability to danger of the
kind spoken of-PeOpte and Patriot.