The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1886-11-04
OUR RURAL TOPICS.
Some Practical Suggestions for Our
Agricultural Readers
CARE OF HORSES.

similar. Some are troubled more than others
with indigestion, and any sudden or severe
shock TO the system may disturb the digestive
organs and bring on collie. If q man eats too
much green food or unripe fruit it will affect
his digestion and give him gripes Let a horse
that is kept on dry feed fill himself with green
clover, and the chances are that he will have
collie. Cattle often bloat up and die under
such circumstances. Let the horse get very
dry and take largo amount of cold water into
his stomach and it may bring on collie, espe-
cially if he is not exercised after drinking and
was warm at the time. Getting suddenly
chilled and taking cold, thus closing the action
of the skin'and throwing all its work of purif-
cation upon the bowels, may cause Indigestion
and collie 1t is particularly liable to if the
horse has weak digestion and Is predisposed to
collie Too much dry feed, allowing the bowels
to become sonstipated, is frequent source of
collie. In such a case injections of tepid water
to set the bowels In motion will bring relief
But the better way is to see that the horse has
every now and then ration of succulent food
TO keep the bowels loose. Overwork and over
heating, as well as overeating after long fast,
are both liable to bring on collie. These are all
causes that common sense and little thought
ought to avoid. But as a rule little or no at
tention is paid to any of these things, and when
the horse gets sick the wonder is what could
have caused the sickness. Take thought for
your horses as you would for yourself; but if
you are one of those who take no thought
about their own health of course this injunc-
ton will not apply. But you should be care
you may neglect your own condition.
OUNCE CULTURE.
A correspondent oft Germantown telegraph
says: almost every good housekeeper who
has garden wishes there were ounces in It,
Nofruit seems more desirable in the kitchen gar
den but il is seldom that il Is seen there. They
are planted in the garden time and again. but
seldom seem to do much good. They Just live
growing but little, and that little seldom of the
vigorous, healthful kind. The whole plant is
knotty and scrubby, and though they may
flower freely the young fruit drops premature
ly, and a bush Of a dozen years old will often
not give dozen sound fruit
1t Is frequently recommended that salt
should be given as a manure TO the ounce and
perhaps in some cases it may do good. The
ounce does not send its roots far away, but has
an immense number in small compass. 1t
will therefore require good feeding to a greater
extent than those trees which can send their
roots long distances in search of food. Salt is
merous roots will make the earth about them
very dry IL may DO beneficial in this respect.
Bat any good manure will benefit the ounce,
and 1t should have plenty Of it.
SEWING sEED-coRN.
An Illinois farmer gives some good ad vice
about sewing seed-corn. He says: Select
your corn now, put il up in your smokehouse,
and smoke it until you have 1t vanished; It
will then be thoroughly dry as we'll as being
full of creosote. You may plant it in the mud
and it will not rot half so easily as corn not so
treated. lay boards across the joist reaching
from one TO the other of the eye-plates and pile
my corn on the boards. If you make q good
selection of corn, there will not be one grain
in so fail TO grow, and the heart worm will not
bother it at all" ~
HANDLING CELERY.
David n. Morgan tells the Gardeners Monthly
how he handles celery: 81 have for two seasons
practiced the following plan for handling eel
cry preparatory for Winter keeping; l take a
ball of strong cotton wick, and gathering up
the stocks of the end plant of q row, tie the
wick around it. Then without cutting the
wick, take turn around the stalks of the next
and each succeeding plant without tying. and
SO continue until the ball is used up When
the end of the wick is reached, either tie it
10 the end Of another wick, or secure it around
wick can be unwound and preserved for future
use. To me this plan has been moro effectual
in keeping the stalk together and easier to
follow, than that Of pulling earth to the plant"
EoTELETs.
Professor Shelton, of the Kansas Agricul-
tural College, found, in careful experiments,
that c0b-meal was the most advantageous feed.
But as an Offset to this, it required so much
more power TO grind the cob and grain together
than the grain alone, the extra expense of do
Ing this at present more than counterbalances
the difference in cost Of using the former over
the latter. But he thinks if a corn aud cob
mill could be devised which would grind more
easily and cheaply than is now done, it would
come into extensive use and thus be a great
saving to the corn-grower and feeder.
The average yield Of wheat per acre in
Missouri has run down from % bushels per
acre on virgin soil TO III bushels the average
in the State for the past 10 years; but Prof
Sanborn says in his last bulletin that, accord
ing to his observation and experience, IL is not
the wheat that is running out, but the farms,
and sometimes the farmers. ave can run
wheat in again." says the Professor, "by run
ming our fertility back Put on sheep. They
are the cheapest and best renoyators.
"A Pennsylvania farmer writes that where
COWS are yarded at night in Summer they will
make good deal Of manure during that sea-
son, while under ordinary management much
of this Is wasted. If the yard is not well bedded
the liquid portion is soon lost, while the solid
portions are dried up so as to be nearly worth.
less. The manure from a COW should DO well
worth 81 per month for the time she is kept in
the barnyard at night. This is far too large a
sum to be wasted, especially as the manure thus
lost may make the difference between success
full and unsuccessful cropping. Manure on the
farm ought to be and IS worth more to the
farmer than its market value.
speaking Of the great celery raising indus
try of Kalamazoo, Mich, a contemporary says:
What was dozen years ago swamp is o-day
vast celery field, beside which a hundred
acre lot is but q garden" Celery culture is
paying. 1t Is not generally known that the
average value OF an acre Of celery is 5000, aud
that the annual crop reaches 5000 tons. An
acre contains from % 600 to 80 600 plants. The
shipping season begins In July, increases until
the holidays, then gradually decreases until
the crop is disposed of in the Spring The in
dustry is said to haye been instituted by farm
ers who could not otherwise make their ends
meet on these originally sandy marshes.
The low price Of butter for the past year
makes the question of profit serious one to
the ordinary farmer; but other farm products
are equally depressed, and the cost of produc-
ton and Of transportation is such as to reduce
them below the point OF profit. 1t costs no
moro to market $40 worth of butter than it
does 81 worth of wheat; but its does cost more
TO produce $40 worth of wheat than it does to
produce a like value Of butter. The wheat
takes from the soil and inpoverishes the farm.
The manure from the animals subsisting upon
the skim milk and from the COW enriches the
farm and increases It's value.