Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-01-30
DaiIu kfnnehrr Journal.
Farm and Live Stock Notes.


Don't tear the new turned leaf.
Grind oats and corn together.
Good corn fodder is better than good
hay for mich cows.
Salt the cattle regularly this year-say
every Monday morning.
! How smooth the agents talk farmers
beware of these oily-tongued fellows.
In cold weather cattle will often suffer
| injuriously from thirst, rather than 60
some distance to the water. See to it
that this does not occur, even if driving
them to drink is necessary.
The theory of the farm chemists and
the practical facts of the farmer often APP
pear to run at variance. For instance,
the chemists tell US that prickly comtrey
is very rich in flesh producing material,
and are urging farmers to raise it for feed
ing The farm animals say no." in
their refusing to eat the stuff after it is
grown.
One Rural" editor laid great plans a
year ago for raising 400 bushels of po-
tatoes to an acre by the new and original
process. He took pages in his paper for
talking about it. The season of 1885
came, and the season went, but the great
experiment which was made proved a
failure This editor is now the laughing
stock of his friends, and he is often asked
how the potatoes are coming along. We
are sure that the next time he will reserve
| his bombast until after the TACT Its a
good plan always.
| The Wyandottes.-Iti is with new breeds
of fowls or other live stock, as with new
grains, fruits and the like, namely, one
ought not to accept every statement put
| forth as to superiority. OF late the Wyan-
dotte breed of fowls has attracted much at
tention. The object of these lines is not
| to show that they are in the least unworthy
Of this, but merely to caution BUYERS
against expecting exceedingly high re-
suits from them. reports thus favorably
concerning nine hens, and compares them
with the Plymouth Rocks. From the 9th
Of September, when the first egg was laid
| by spring Matched chickens, until two
DAYS before Christmas, the yield from nine
hens was PSI eggs. AS breed they ma
ture rather earlier than the Plymoth Rocks,
and are prettier as to feathers-both good
points. But then the eggs average small
er in size, and are darker colored than
| tllDst VI tllc Otntl DIttu Udllltu. mus
we see that in these, as with other highly
lauded breeds. there are points both for
and against them. Many who praise the
Wyandottes the highest have never raised
a hen.
| Smutty Feed Notwithstanding all that
is said in the farm journals from time to
time about death to animals from eating
corn or other grain that is affected by smut.
we venture to say that ten thousand cattle
die from other canses every year. for each
one that is killed by smut. The National
Agricultural Department exploded the
prevailing theory concerning the injury
which smut may cause, some years ago.
test was made by tying up some cows
and feeding them on smuttv grain and
fodder very freely. They didn't die-not
one of them-but instead improved in flesh
during the experiment. How the false
ness of this theory gained currency no
doubt was by the feeding of incur
red fodder in the fall, that had
smut in it, at time when the
animals were unused to this kind of
food, and so freely as to amount to an
over feed. But whatever bad results there
may have been. it was due more to the
general untitness of the food, than to the
smut that may have been present.
Speciality Farming Whenever we hear
of farmer who is going to put all his
land to one crop it reminds us of man
down east who tried that sort of thing for
Just two years. The onion crop had been
paying one tor some years in his vicinity
and as his soil was well adapted to it, and
he had each year wished that his acre of
onions had been many acres, he concluded
to put his entire farm to the crop, which
he did Result, an immense crop, but
everybody else had big onion crops too,
and he didn't realize enough from all he
harvested To pay expenses. Potatoes,
however, paid well everywhere that year,
and had he put one-halt of the farm to this
crop he would have made money. The
next year he quit on the 'ruinous onions"
and put in nothing but potatoes. This
time he Jared as badly all around with the
potatoes as he had the year before with
the onions, so that in two years he made
nothing from his farm. Now he grows a
number of crops every year.