The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-03-20
FARM, GARDEN AND HOUSEHOLD.
Farm and Garden Notes.

more susceptible to cold than any other
animal on the farm.
1t is estimated that the average con-
sumption of wheat by each inhabitant of
the United States is nearly six bushels.
Hard subsols serve to arrest and re-
tain escaping fertilizng materials, but
are usually cold and late in advancing
crops.
Rice is one of the best substances for
fattening fowls quickly. Boiled and
mixed with ground oats and meal it can
not be excelled.
Seedlings are apt to succeed best where
they originate, hence the many disap
pointments when varieties are transferred
10 other sections.
According to conservative estimates.
there are 5000, 600 colonies of bees in the
United States, which annually yield 1870, e
00O,0 pounds of honey.
Successful peach growers condemn
the Use of stable manure for peach
trees, recommending potash and bone
dust instead. Severe pruning is recon-
mended. The yellows arc generally as
criDed to poverty Of the land.
To succeed with ounces they must
have plenty of manure, be mulched to
keep the roots moist and COOL pruned
severely by cutting back half the an
nual growth, keeping out the borers
and training in tree form instead of bush
shape.
=. Too many, in breaking their horses,
put them Immediately to work. This
custom, while effective, destroys some
what the temper and action of horse.
The most humane and profitable course
to pursue is to make the work light at
first, gradually increasing it until the
full capacity of the horse is reached.
Tobacco water is the best remedy for
red spiders on chrysanthemums. The
solution should be of about the color of
strong coffee and when used as warm as
the hand will bear, syringcd over the
entire plants and on the lower side of
the leaves. One application a day, re-
peated two or three times on successive
days, is generally sufficient.
The dark color of charcoal makes it
valuable for cold soils, as it absorbs heat
from the suns rays. 1t has, however,
other valuable properties, 1t has some
potash and enough of sulphur to make it
ing radsh, early turnips and onions
Straw burned on the surface Just before
sowing onion seed is an excellent pre-
partition.
For some purposes oats have as great
feeding value per pound as any grain,
but it is not for laying on fat or furnish
ing cream and butter for milk. No grain
is better for horses than oats; and for
choice animals they would be preferred to
corn were both offered at the same price
per bushel. For farm horses a mixture
of corn and oats, ground and fed on
moist cut feed. is the best ration for ami
mails while working.
Many fields, especially those that are
long and narrow, are always plowed in
the same direction, the object being to
get the longest possible furrow. An ex-
change, referring to this practice, sug.
gests that great increase in productive
ness will often be obtained by simply
changing the direction of working. 1t
certainly costs nothing to try the expert
ment, and by cutting across the old
lines of burrows new soil is opened to the
growth of plant roots.
The oldfashioned fireplace is not as
much used as it once was, so that the
swapping OF wood in the fire is not so
great an inconvenience. An old farmer
says that he learned when young that
wood on fire snapped from the side
nearest the heart. With back log con.
stantly throwing sparks into the room.
he remedied all difficulty by simply turn
ing it over. The log continued to snap
as before, but the sparks flew against the
chimney instead of into the room.
The failure of inventors to make n
practical milking machine resulted from
misrepresentation of what is desired.
The attempt is usually made to initiate
the action of the calf in sucking. What
is desired is to initiate the compound
motions of the hands and fingers, which
probably no machine can perform SO
perfectly as can skilful mixer. The
motion of the calf in sucking Fever gets
all the milk, and a COW MIXED in that
way soon dries off and becomes worth
less for the dairy.
DIR. Sturtcvant says that careful ex-
periments have shown that unripe TO-
mato seeds will grow and give gain of
fifteen days in earliness over ripe seed
from the same plants Peas and corn tit
for table use will grow and produce
earlier crops than ripe seed, bat plants
from Immature seed are more feeble than
those from ripe seed. Eariness seems
to be in proportion to the state of ripe
ness of the seed from which the plants
have been raised. The practical question
to be determined is how to combine both
earliness and igor in the same plant.
One of the most successful exhibitors
of grapes in England told me that "a
man should be able to carry all the
laterals and shoots he took of in his
waistcoat pocket" l once saw a SPLEEN
did house of grapes spoiled by the check
given in cutting off a lot Of shoots and
laterals all at once, instead of giving a
quarter of an hour occasionally and
pinchng Off the laterals when they
were small; they had been allowed to
run, and then the gardener went at it
with his knife, aud almost every bunch
in that house was shruuhen, or shriv.
eled, in consequence. w H. Had-
Ituufoo