The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-02-05
FARM NOTES.
A limestone soil Ia the hest n

A limestone soil is the best for sheep.
Let the morning meal of the fowl be
warm.
There is no better feed for mich cows
than beets.
There is an agricultural school for
girls at Rouen, France.
Oleomargarine and other butter imita-
tons are now called .'bull butter"
This years wheat crop in France is
| 100000 bushels above the average.
Thorough drainage is the surest pre-
ventive of the freezing out of winter
grain.
farmers wife says that mustard
seed will prevent mold from forming in
vinegar.
An ordinary cocoon will reel 1000
yards of fibre, the largest continuous
| fibre known.
The Kansas State Agricultural Society
has pronounced against most of the Rus
sian varieties of apples.
The experiments made in raising pea
nuts on Long Island, N, Y, this year
"Si0 ohehciy SUCCESSFUL.
A chincapin tree at Americas, Ga,
yielded 10000 nuts this year The fruit
resembles chestnuts in taste.
1t is now said that the bogus butter
manufacturers are adulterating their
own product by using cotton-seed oil.
The low price of sugar has resulted in
decrease in the amount of. beet sugar
manufactured in Europe this year
Would it not be good plan to see
that the watering-troughs are kept
lneasurably free of ice and strictly
cleanP
The Prairie Farmer is urging system
attic and thorough investigation of
cholera.
A Government commission of Bavar-
ians are in this country examining our
forest trees with view to procuring
seeds to plant.
Pasteur's method of vaccination for
cattle plague has proven successful in
India for horses, cows, sheep, buffalo,
asses and elephants.
The Italian Government has invested
S3, 100000 in raw silk to help the silk
reelers and throwsters. Raw silk has
advanced 20 per cent. in French mar
kets.
Dried potatoes are prepared in Ger
many in immense quantities They lose
65 per cent. of their weight in drying,
and when used are said to be us good as
fresh ones.
The cloverseed nudge, an importation
from Europe. is proving annually very
serious drawback to the clover crops of
Canada, and is gradually encroaching
over this country.
Winter is the season for making
manure. The best precautions should
be made for carefully preserving it, A
good way to preserve it in the west is to
haul it onto stiff soils ut once.
Dakota shows vegetation right along
in summer. According to the report of
farmer there, his field of barley grew
thirty-eight inches in thirty -eight days,
or at rate OF an inch day.
A contemporary advises feeding oats
TO young pigs, because the hulls help to
distend the stomach. Oats are good for
growing pigs, but not because the hulls
distend the stomach. Hulls have no
value as pig feed.
Professor Sanborn, of the Missouri
Agricultural College, says that winter
fattening of cattle, as now practiced in
the west, will have to be abandoned as
Improbable until the values of winter
and summer beef are wider apart.
Many insect pests are destroyed by
late fall blowing. The upturning of the
earth exposes them to wet and cold by
breaking up their retreats, and it does
this at so late season as to leave them
no chance to find new places in which
to hide.
Professor Sanborn, of the Missouri
Agricultural College. says be has found
complete protection from mice and rab-
bits for his young fruit trees by coating
them with wash Of lime and water,
with ".ae,'sh cnnnaras in II tn give il n
deep green color.
The quantity of sumach gathered in
Virginia this year was very large. Ii is
the most valuable tannin plant known.
Some poor men have made as high rs
$500 by gathering the leaves of a shrub
that received no attention till now since
the close of the war;
The breeds of sheep are divided into
three classes-the long woods, middle
woods and fine woods. The first COM
prises the Cotswolds, Lincolns and Lei
cesters. The middle woods comprises the
downs, such as Oxford, Hampshire and
Shropshire, while the Merinos are the
fine wools
A Wisconsin dairyman uttered great
truth, says the Rurdl NeaD Yorker, when
he remarked at a meeting of dairymen
that "it was not by special DISPENSE
ton of Providence that a certain farmer
received $9S per head for the yearly pro-
duct of his cows, while his neighbors re-
ceived only 80 per head"
"Prune in winter for wood and in
summer for fruit" But do not prune too
much. Just enough to let in sufficient
light and air to give the leaves their fair
quota is right. A good rule is, when
you see limb interfering with another
out with it, whatever the time of year
When the sap is in full flow wounds will
heal over quickest.
Between 500 and 600 acres OF drifting
sand deserts in Golden Gate Park. San
Francisco, have been redeemed for beau
tiful forest drives by "bents," or beach
grass. Already, where three or four
years ago there was nothing but moving
sand dunes, glaring, worthless, trouble
some, there are now 100000 thriving
Monterey cypress and pine trees.
The Russian harvest of 1885 is above
the average for winter wheat, but below
the average for spring wheat. The de-
ficiency IN spring wheat is due to drouth.
Rye is slightly above the average. The
oat crop is bad. Other serials are below
the average. The beet and tobacco
crops are good. Hay and fruit are in
ferior. The total wheat production is
&c. 900 quarters, which is 20 per cent.
under the average.
Cover your strawberry plants as soon
after freezing weather as possible. Not
thickly, for the strawberry is really an
evergreen, where the conditions are
favorable. and the plants must have air.
The mulch should be thick enough to
hold snow, say about three inches, and
should be taken off in the spring before
the plants come into active growth.
Slough hay, because free from weed
seeds, is the best mulch,
Comparatively few farmers succeed in
fattening sheep in winter. A neighbor
told me yesterday says correspondent
of the american AgricuituriSt,. that last
fall he bought $50 sheep, fed them straw,
L..v ,NxlI. Il