Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1886-05-21

says: ine prepared foois Tor poultry
probably have some merit, but / never
could get any profit from their use. /
do not buy anything of the sort, even
for our birds. We have fine singer
more than ten years old that never saw
n cuttletish bone or store seed, and he
is healthy and smart as if he had been
kept on twenty cent seed with all the
etceteras. OF course birds will die, and
we lose one occasionally, but no more
than people who follow the fashion to
use all the regulation nostrums.
&. Nj. Stockwcll in the n. T.. Farm
en-, speaks very highly of the Carnio-
liam bees, summing up their strong
points as follows They are prolific;
they are gentle; they are fine comb
builders; they gather little propolis; they
are death to tramp bees and honey
snatchers, and they cluster completely.
They resemble common bees, but they
are not SO dark, and some are marked
very beautifully. Mr.. Frank Benton,
of Munich, Germany, writing to the
Canadian Bee Journal, says that the
Carniolians are superior to all Europe
an races.
j. NJ. Mesereau, of Cayuga, n. Y,
tells the Country Gentleman that where
he had cultivated the soil in his pc n
orchard, the fruit is of first quality,
while in an adjoining orchard, in which
tall grass was growing, the fruit was
poor and knotty. But the best pears
of all which he had seen the past seal
son grew on ground where the lawn
mower was kept running once week,
the free top dressing of manure which
the lawn had annually, together with
the short growth Of the grass and its
roots aiiOrding these excellent results.
a writer on garden topics in Vich' s
Magazine tells us that all quick matur-
ing crops require much richer soil and
better cultivat on than those that are
longer in maturing. Late peas, like
Champion Of England. or Marrowfat,
will yield profitable crop on moder-
ately rich land without manure, but the
kinds that mature early must be fur
nished an abundance of plant food in
such n form rs TO be at once available.
In all crops that come up thick and re-
qure to be thinncd, every days neglect
after the plants are large enough to be
thinned, reduces the yield of the crop.
c. Nj. Weed, in the Prairie Farmer,
says concerning Insecticides: "Thc hard
common sense that is rapidly being de-
veloped in enlightened communities is
undermining all faith in the various
patent nostrums so potent if their
manufacturers are to be believed, in
curing all the ills that flesh is heir to.
In the same way we can safely dstrust
the efficacy of any inscctcide for which
sweeping general claims are made.
Bears are not caught in mousetraps.
neither are corn root worms killed by
the same process rs potato bugs. Some
insects suck. others bite. To kill the
former we must apply external insecti-
cides the latter may be reached inter-
nally. The secret of success in fighting
insects lies in knowing the life history
of such species, and attacking it at the
most vulnerable points.
Corn. It's Botany and History.
Indian corn is EotlaicGily one of the
grasses. and is known to science as yea
mays. The first or generic name comes
from the Greek zao. To live, alluding to
its nutritivc qualities. and from the
second or specific term comes its COM
mon name of maize. The great family
of graminn, or grasses. embraces hum
dreds of genera, from the tiny shoots
which clothc the fields TO the tall bam-
boos of which the Chinese construct
their houses. Wheat, oats, barley. rye.
rice, sorghum and sugar-canc are also
members of this family. Corn varies
from most of the grasses in having the
culm or stalk filled with pith between
the joints, instead of being hollow.
Another variation from the usual type
of the class is, that corn is monncious
that is, it produces its staminate and
pistillate flowers on different parts of
the same plant. The tassel is made up
of staminatc flowers, which shed the
fertilizing pollen upon the silks, each
one of which is pistl long enough to
prelude from the husk. OF the his
tory of Indian corn, nothing is known
with certainty. All the early ex-
plorcrs and first settlers in the New
World found it in cultivation among
the aborigines. The pre- historic
mound builders, who inhabited
the continent before the Indian
tribes found here by Europeans,
must have used corn for food,
as is proved by finding charred grains
and cobs in some of the mounds
which have been explored. Many
eminent botanists suppose that In