Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-04-03

mares can be- made to do work enough
to pay for their keep, SO that their
colts will be a net gain. All the food
for the mares and their progeny can
DO raised on the place, and there will
be no money outlay, except for male
animals and buildings for shelter. At
present prices there is more money in
draft animals than in those raised for
supplying meat. That such a state of
things will continue for some time
seems likely. The demand for horses
in all countries increases as wealth and
civilization increase.
WORTHY OF CULTIVATION.
The high plush blueberry, writes a
correspondent of The Boston Journal,
is another of the wild fruits that can
be introduced into our gardens with
advantage. Although supposed to
grow only in cold. wet swamps. it is
found or trial to grow and bear well in
the garden, providing it be set where
j. will DO partially protected from the
hot MONDAY sun, and tho ground be
well mulched with leaves or some other
cooling substance. This plant will not
grow we'll out in an open space, even
tiOu2h tuo A1bu 10 WOlA CuillNdtCd.
The sur burns the fruit and destroys
it. The bushes should be set near
enough together to completely shade
the ground, or they must DO set the
north side Of a board fence, or In the
shade of trees; but wherever set it is a
great protection To keep the ground
well mulched, much better than to
cultivate the ground. In the selection
of bushes to set, care should be taken
to get good varieties, rs there is 4
great choice in the flavor a. well
as size. When it is found difficult
to get good varieties take those that
cal be got with the most ease ard
gldft them with the best that can be
obtained; it is as easy to graft the
huckleberry as the apple. The time
will no doubt come when nurserymen
will keep choice varieties of burberry
bushes; certainly the time is not far
distant when il will be demanded of
them. There appears TO be but one
serious enemy to the BURBERRY, which
is the birds; they seem to understand
the difference between wild and crl i
waited fruit, and will always give the
preferance to those that grow in the
garden, not ven being willing to wait
until the fruit is ripe, but will eat it as
soon az it begins TO turn red. The
remedy is to cover With netting, and
the same can be used that has been
used to protect the strawberry bed.
The bushes bear SO abundantly that it
is very easy TO cover all that a family
would need. BY growing these berries
the family not only have the fruit so
near home that they can enjoy the lux
ury Of eating them from the bushes.
but they can have them fresh and well
ripened for a much longer season
than they can be found in
the market. When we'll protected
they will some seasons keep in good
condition on the bushes until October.
A fruit that is so valuable rs this
should receive moro attention. 1t
should not only be moro generally cul-
tivated, but efforts should be made to
improve it from the seed. No doubt it
could be done if the same efforts were
made that have been made 10 improve
the strawberry, grape and other fruits.
TEAM SPADE ACTION DIGGER.
a London paper says: OF late years
"a great many people have come round
TO the opinion Of Sydney Smith, that
farming is all vanity and vexation of
spirit. Enormous sums have been lost
during the last seven or eight years in
the profitless following OF agriculture;
but suddenly there is light on The path,
and tho farmer is being shown ii mor
excellent way. Everything depends,
it seems, upon spade ~husbandry. Some
enterprising persons Of Essex have
purchased several of those gigantic
spade-action diggers which are occa-
s~ionally to be seen at work in that
county; have hired, a. nominal rents,
q number Of vacant farms which were
running 10 waste; have cultivated
them with "Darby's elephant"
as the machine is ~playfully
termed, after its inventor; and
are waxing rich in consequence. The
digger is said to turn over ten acres
per day; and. as it digs very deeply, it
Is perfectly feasible that last years
corn crops upon these neglected farms
should have been, as it is stated they
were, phenomenal. But is well to re-
member that this digger is of enorm-
Gus size; that its effects upon the roads
it ~traverses drives highway surveyors
mad, and that it's cost is somewhere
about IL. 000-a sum which probably
not one English farmer in five hundred
now POSSESSES. Nevertheless it is a safe
rule never to scott at a new invention.
and farmers will be glad to have more
particulars about this agent of the ag-
r%icultural millennium.
EXHAUSTION OF FERTILITY.
An interesting article bearing upon
the subject of soil exhaustion is con-
tributed by Sir John Lawes to The
Agricultural Gazette. He shows. by
quoting from his own experiments at
RDthamsted, that though the fertility
OF a soil may easily DO temporarily ex-
hausted by roo. crops. SO that it will
not, without manure. yield a fresh
crop of the same character, yet jby
grain crops the exhaustion is compar-
atively slow-not 50 much on
account of the lesser de
mands made on the soil by
the corn crops. but rather on account
of their greater power Of seeking and
finding the available plant.food in the
soil. That grain crops g actually
be grown for thirty or forty years sue
cessively without manure has been
proved by the Rothamsted expert
ments, though of course tho crops pro-
duced arc small. All this time there
is a gradual loss OF the fertilizing ele-