Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1886-01-01
FARM, GARDEN AND HOUSEHOLD.
Farm aud Garden Notes.

/ Butter tubs should be thorough,
cleansed and then soaked in brine befori
packing down butter in them, which
will materially assist in preventing the
butter from being tainted.
An unnamed disease has 6ecimated
the apiaries in the West the past season
The bees have a shiny, black appearance
and, though unhealthy, in other respect,
do not differ from those that are well.
A few statistics may bs of service: Ar
| ordinary barrel contains A solid feet, q
bushel contains tri1e over 4 solid feet,
a solid foot of water weighs 62f pounds,
an acre contains 43, 26O square feet
! 1t is said that in packing apples fol
shipment the fruit should be filled two
inches higher than the head of the bar.
rel, so that when pressed down it will
not shake by rough handling in the cars
or in being delivered.
A small amount of lime placed in diff.
terent parts of the cellar, will absorb
moisture and make the air much drier.
This is an important point in keeping
potatoes, but fruit is better kept in O
room that is cool and not excessively
dry.
Farmers should go carefully over their
pastures every little while and scatter
the weddings of their stock, AID not have
the fields dotted with great bIotches of
rank grass, so rank by the over-richness
of the manuring that no kind of stock
will cat it.
Cut out the unsightly branches of
currant bushes, the old canes of rasp-
berries and black berries. and see that
they are staked and tied. Prure crane
vines now. Rid strawberry beds of
weeds. Mellow the soil, and after the
first hard frost, mulch.
Bees, to be made sure and profitable
producers, must be cared for and fed at
certain seasons just as surely as poultry,
and their product of money can be just
as certainly relied upon. There is no
more fascinating work than the care of
bees when one becomes interested in it.
The best remedy against the giriling
of trees by rabbits is to coat the bark
with some substance offensive to them,
one of the best being thick wash made
of COW manure and water, with enough
water Stacked lime to make the mixture
of dull white color or greensh gray.
The mixture may be applied with an old
broom or brush.
GAS scarce as hens teeth" has become
a proverb. And as fowls have no teeth
they are dependent on sand and gravel
swallowed to grind the food in their
gizzards. A supply of gravel should be
provided for winter use, and a small
quantity placed daily where fowls can
have access to it when the ground is
covered with snow.
The factory system of butter making
insures greater uniformity and gener-
ally better product than is produced by
butter made in the private diaries. But
with cheese this has not always been the
fact. There are greater temptations to
lower the quality of cheese than of but
ter, as in most places in this country
there is much too little difference be-
tween the price of poor cheese and of
good.
Some potato growers who have been
investigating the subject of rot for the
purpose Of tindinga remedy, incline to
the belief that gathering aud burning or
burying deeply in the ground all the
diseased vines and tubers will have
tendency to check its ravages, by pre-.
venting the production of spores, which
takes place when the tops and diseased
potatoes are left to decay upon the
ground.
1t really makes little difference in the
yield of corn whether cut early or late,
if not cut before the grain is glazed At
any time alter the outside is hardened
the juices In the stalk will ripen it with
little or no loss of weight. But if cut
before this time, the grain will shrink on
the cob and there will be some loss of
weight. But the stocks of early-cut
corn, when used for fodder, will be
enough better to compensate for the
difference in the grain.
For trees and plants of undoubted
hardness, there are some advantages and
no great risks in fall planting. Some
kinds, like larch, birch and beech, it is
always best to plant in the fall. With
evergreens it is different; plant only in
the spring or just after midsummer.
After several hard frosts the earlier that
fall planting can be done the better; if
leaves remain, strip them off. Stake Sc.
curely in windy places, and mound up.
Every farmer should have a workshop
and the necessary tools to work with.
He will rapidly learn to attend to much
OF his own repairing of the ordinary i'm
pIements and machines upon his prem
ises instead Of mourning the delay, ex-
pense and uncertainty of depending on
professionals at a distance. A person
becomes very expert in the use of good
tools after short experience, and NAY
thus save many a dollar without CON
Stunning any time necessary for the usual
demands of the farm.