Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-06-27

| in that county, which is 30 by so feet, two
stories high and contains four furnaces and
dryers each capable of accommodating six
tons of green fruit. The main fiues, which
are twenty feet long and three feet in
diameter, are surrounded inside with
| twenty-four two-inch pipes, twelve of
which discharge at the back end of the
furnace and the others at various distances
along the furnace. The dryers, which are
situated Immediately over the furnaces,
are twenty-five and one-half feet long,
seven feet wide and nearly seven feet high,
holds $50 trays three feet five inches
square; the four will accommodate twenty
four tons of fruit yielding four tons of
dried fruit each day and possibly more.
Mr. Surdam will employ about eighty
hands during the busy season. He has
purchased the fruit of 200 acres of apricots,
paying one and a half cents for the green
fruit. After the apricot season he viii dry
peaches, apples, etc. In connection with
the drying establishment he also has
cannery, with capacity OF from ,0G0 to
1000 cans day.
GENERAL NOTES,
Of the many varieties Of peaches the
New Jersey Horticultural Society thinks
that the best for profit are the Oldmixon
and Crawford's Late.
Potash on grape vines has been tried
with great success, especially on light soils.
1t is said TO promote the thrift of the vines
and largely increase the yield of the crop.
If milk is set at home for cream the
sooner it can be set after milking and the
higher the temperature the better as cream
rises best and almost wholly while the tenn
perature is falling.
The best way to market grain, says an
exchange, is to first feed it to cattle, sheep,
hogs and poultry then market them Two
birds are thus killed with one stone. You
get the top price for your grain and the top
price for your food supply, and, best of all,
You cut off a part of the $4,000, 600 drain
that has formerly gone abroad for these
very supplies
An English writer in an exchange says
nitrate of soda i'll liquid form, containing
about one pound Of nitrate to twelve gal
Ions of water, acts as q powerful Stimulant
to pot plants, imparting a luxuriant hue to
the foliage, and is particularly beneficial to
dahlias and chrysanthemums. The num-
Der of applications must depend on the
nature and condition of the plants. 1t is
not to be given to plants at rest.
The Aylesbury, England dairy farmers
have been sending milk from COWS fed on
eISlidgG 10 Z lllk-COnQtDSlng factory, anu
the company finds SO much trouble with
the milk that when the time for making
new contracts comes round milk will be
refused that is made by COWS fed on ensi-
lage. The New York State condensing fac
tories have had similar experience, yet
ensilage milk is pronounced by the city
milk-peddlers as of the very best quality.
Pigeons are more profitable than may be
supposed, as they often hatch and raise as
many as ten pairs of squads in year. No
one should expect them to pay profit un
less suitable poultry loft has been pro-
Yided. If left outside in boxes the owls
raid on them. Hundreds of squads and
adults are yearly destroyed without the
knowledge OF the keeper by such midnight
marauders The hawks also destroy the
old birds during the day, but the owl is the
principal enemy.
Austria supports seventy schools OF agrl-
culture, with 200 students and ia agri-
cultural evening schools. with $500 stu
dents France has forty-three farm schools,
with thirty to forty pupils at each. The
Government pays the board of each pupil.
and allows him 20 francs year for cloth
ing. Paris has three department schools
of agriculture and National Agricultural
Institute. Germany has over $50 schools
of agriculture horticulture, horticulture
and viniculture. Their first experimental
agricultural station was established in 1852;
upward Of sixty are now in operation, each
one having a special line Of research.