The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-04-18
Farm and Garden Notes.

Farm and Garden Notes.
Cheap seed are often expensive.
Pigs and poultry are profitable.
Succulent food makes succulent milk.
The horse-stable should be cleaned
daily.
Butter unfit for table use can hardly
be regarded as fit for cooking.
Remember that milk for young pigs
and calves should be fed warm.
Don't undertake to till more acres
than you can cultivate thoroughly.
Good corn-stalks, we'll cured, are
about equal to hay for mich COWS.
1t is not advisable to SOW or plant
until the ground is dry and warm.
Put all farm machinery and tools into
first rate order during leisure hours.
Plant the quick growing Virginia
crceper around trellises and outhouses.
Clover makes richer hay than timothy
or other grasses, but clover itself varies
greatly. That which becomes dead ripe
before cutting loses its leaves in curing
and its stalks become hard and woody.
No part of farming is more uncertain
than the quality of hay given to stock.
Inspection shows wide variation, depend
ent on greater or less success in curing,
and also on the original constituents OF
which the hay is composed.
In wet season all hay is comparatively
innutritious, even when it is not still
further injured in curing. Hay on land
sub -soiled and drained is richer than that
grown on soil where the roots of grass
find stagnant water a foot below the
surface. -
Taken one year with another, broom
corn is a profitable crop on rich land,
and where there is good market for
the product. Four to six hundred
pounds of the brush can be grown per
acre, and besides this the seed has some
value for food. 1t is grown in drills,
planted twice rs thickly as corn, in order
to make finer brush.
In many places where running streams
run through level lands very little Ia
Dor in building a dam will overflow a
a wide surface. If the fields so over
flowed are in grass this is very bene-
fetal. Even though the water contains
little or no sediment, it has some ele-
ments of fertility which 1t has absorbed
from the air or from contact with clods
of manure on the soil.
One who processes to know practically
whereof he speaks, says that poultry for
the table, to be set at its best, should be
fattened quickly. One of the best fat.
tcning properties, he adds, will be found
in milk in almost any stage from sweet
to clabbcr. 1t should be fed in connec-
tion with plenty of grain. Chickens
should be fed plentifully before going
upon the roost, also saith this expe-
rienced adviser.
Cuttings of grapevines should be made
with two buds-one about half an inch
from the lower end and the other an
inch or so from the top. The cuttings
are planted in good mellow soil, in rows
twelve inches apart. in a sloping dircc-
ton, with the lower bud five inches
under the surface. The roots grow from
the lower bud. When year old the
plants may be set out in their permanent
places.
Hcavcs is more often caused by indi-
gestion than any other ailment. 1t has
been cured eiFectually by giving moist
food, of which cut turnips or potatoes
form part. Two quarts of potatoes cut
and sprinkled with corn and oatmeal
may be- given three times day, and the
hay should he sprinkled with salt water.
But the best method is to give moistened
cut hay or straw with ground feed in
moderate rations.
The most important soil ingredients of
plant food-the ones that the atmos-
phcre can not supply at all, or not in
sufficient quantity, and which the soil
or fertilizers must supply, SO the plant
can absorb them through its roots, are
potash, lime, magnesia. iron, phosphoric
acid, sulphuric acid, chlorine and some
compound of nitrogen. Plants also take
silica, soda and some other materials from
the soil, but these are needed only in
minute quantities, or not at all.
Spices must be used with moderation.
Fowls insides ale not made of india
rubber or sheet iron, but are quite like
those Of human beings. Red pepper
particularly, should be used with care.
At this season of year, when eggs are 10
be used for Matching, ginger should be
substituted, as it acts upon the liver,
and serves as medicine as well as a
stimulant. Feed chopped clover hay
before grass, stepped in boiling water and
they will relish it wonderfully, after the
lack of green food during the long
winter. 1t may be added to their warm
mash in the morning.
Southern Regard for Women.
In our Southern States one gets still