The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1886-03-03

ET-AKWA
need protection alike from sun and cold,
Nurserymen manage it by stretching
covers of some sort over the plants in
the rows. These covers remain during
the season. Even with this precaution
many are lost. Young evergreens in the
forest get this protection naturally from
shade of trees, and though a large por-
ton of all that start fail, enough are left
to reach maturity.
PORTABLE FENCES.
The great cost of fencing material is
inducing farmers to consider how small a
portion of the time it is in use. Those
who do with the least seldom use one
quarter of their fences in one year, and
the expense of the remainder is a dead
loss. By making portable fences a very
small amount Of fencing material will be
needed, even where the pasture system
is kept up. When a farmer On high
priced land gets to this point he will be
very apt to take one step farther, adopt
soiling and dispense with fences alto
gether.
SALT AS A FERTILIZER.
The wide difference in views of farm
ers as to the value of salt as a n is
due mainly to variation in the natural
fertility of the soil. If there is not la
tent plant food for the salt to make avail
IL l.. - Ill IL 1.44lo ~o1J &C, -
properly a manure itself. On heavy
soils Astounding in vegetable matter, salt
is beneficial to crops, but it is by ma
bling them to exhaust the soil more rap
idly.
Cold weather is the best time to kill
sheep ticks as they keep close to the
body where the remedies are applied.
Snuff, insect powder, or tobacco smoke
will kill them.
A poor quality of coarse salt will spoil
the sale of the best of butter, by making
it appear with salt crystals all over the
outside of the rolls, giving the appear
ance of a rancid and stale article. Use
good fine salt for butter.
Blankets are indispensable in cold
weather where the team must be warm
ed up and then allowed to stand and
cool off suddenly. Farmers do not use
them as much as they should, yet they
are not expensive and are more econom
ical to anyone than a sick horse.
Wood ashes can often be purchased
cheaply of those who have no land to
use them on, or do not know their real
value, and it is we'll to collect all of them
that can be collected conveniently and
spread around the fruit trees, especially
the peach trees. I.. ar-r
For a simple remedy against rats no.
thing is more effective perhaps than
chloride of lime. The rodents have so
great a dislike of this drug that they will
clear out from any place where it is scat
tered about freely in their holes and
runs.
A ton of any good absorbent, saturated
with urine, is worth more for crops than
a ton of the dry excrement, so that far
mers who allow the liquid to
to waste are losing more than half
their manure yet they are asking, How
shall we keep up our farms?
Always attend to your bees promptly
and they in turn will reward you for all
your trouble in looking after their well
fare. All the hives should have section
boxes, or frames placed on for the sur
plus honey about the middle of June in
the Northern States, and the 1st of Nav
in the South.
The farming classes must not expect
much from science or scientists apart
from actual practice and experiment.
Science is conservative. A scientist is
an inventor, he judges only by
what is already known, he neither Gre
ates nor makes anew. In solving many
of our agricultural problems the observ-
ing farmer is the peer of the mere scien-
fist. Oliver Wendell Holmes APPLY says
"Science is a first-rate piece of furniture
for a mans upper chamber, if he has
common sense on the ground floor. But,
if a man hasn't a plenty of good COM
sense, the more science he has the
worse for his dependents" The safest
guides for the farmer are observation
and experience, directed by the lights
of knowledge.
T. For the farmer who seriously enters on
the work of improving his farm there is