News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-03-01

An Australian farmer finds the thistles
which infest his lands make ensiIage that
the cattle eat readily.
Warming drinking water for cows may
be less costly than warming it after it
gets in their stomachs.
Foot-rot is a bad disease among sheep,
but keep the focks on dry ground, and
they cannot contract it.
There is no better agency for protect
ing an orchard from insect ravages than
a large flock of fowls-chickens.
Many colored people from the Gulf
States are cultivating cotton with con-
siderable success in Southern Kansas.
Kalamazoo, Mich, has 2, 900 acres de-
voted to the cultivation of celery
with a stated average profit of $500 an
acre.
If the soils properly prepared, manure
may be applied to advantage at any time
CT the year, so that it does not interfere
with more pressing work.
A writer cautions farmers from using
heavy wheelbarrows. There is no more
useful implement, but a light one IS
! easier to work and all-sufficient.
Old Ieached ashes which have absorbed
ammonia and formed ~saltpetre, are said
to produce better results on crops than
the unbleached. But all wood ashes are
valuable.
Cows fed on meal mixed with straw
cut and moistened, says Professor
Arnold, give more milk and consider
ABLY richer than when fed on the best
hay alone.
Sunfowers are disinfectants, or serve
as a preventive of miasmatic fevers.
They absorb nitrogen more rapidly than
other plants, and will evaporate large
quantities of water daily.
In this country nearly three dollars
worth of milk, cream, butter and cheese
together are sold and consumed to every
dollars worth of beef. The market for
dairy products is practically inexhaust-
ible.
The GermantOUn Telegraph suggests
that while root-pruning may do for
dwarf pear trees, grape vines and cherry
trees, it would "cost more than it would
come to" to extend it to large standard
trees.
The New Orleans Times Democrat says
DOLlC-lllCdl dlIu tloIlCS uOuUlCN lAC SIOp
of grapes in ~Tangipahoa parish the
second year after the application, and
increased the size and quality 100 per
cent.
Potash should enter into the compost
ton of anu for grape vines, the ele-
ments in the soil being generally in bad
condition for assimilation; potash carries
forward with it in some way the other
fertiIizing principles.
There is no use saving the common
turnip for late feeding. Soon after Janu-
ary it becomes pithy, loses its flavor and
feeding value. The rutabaga is a better
keeper, but it also becomes pithy later in
the winter. Beets and mangels are much
better feeds for COWS late in the season,
and have the advantage that they give no
bad flavor to the milk.
Although analysis shows little ma
nurial value in coal ashes, they are I'M
doubtcdly beneficial as a mulch for trees,
keeping the soil open and allowing rain
to soak into the soil without pushing the
surface. They are also good absorbents
of odors, and in the henhouse or privy,
mixed with their contents, they make
these valuable manure more convenient
to handle.
What is required by a hen, for a place
for her nest in winter, is a snug, warm
location; in summer she wants a cool
place, say dry earth for a bottom, with
soft hay under it. A broken egg will
cause lice quicker and easier han any,
thing else. In the hatching season see
that the hen has no lice, give her sound
oo-., orl clio Will fotnh ont a it-olu
brood if she has a comfortable nest.
An example of what some men can do
with one acre of land by judicious man
agement and the skilful application of
chemical manures we learn that a Scotch
farmer recently harvested a crop of
green top Swedish turnips which
weighed over fifty tons per acre. But
this record is outstripped by another
Scotch farmer, who has a crop of turnips
calculated to average eighty tons per
acre, the roots of good shape, and weigh
ing from sixteen to seventeen pounds
A Kansas writer in the New York
Witness tells how TO get borers out of
peach and apple trees. So soon as
newly planted trees start to grow in the
spring he puts a pint of soft soap in a two
gallon bucket of water, stirs it up well,
takes an old broom and scrubs or washes
the trees several times. This, he says, is
a complete preventive of mischief from
borers. But the ground around the
trees should be kept clear of weeds, a
mulch should be put around the trees,
and if it is very dry they should be kept
growing by watering regularly. Mulch
inc nv cOVerinU with leaves straw
sawdust, or in fact anything that serves
as a cover and protection, should also be
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