Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1889-09-04

| Across the ocean g waste of water.
| And then with gems L IL deck her brow
| And worship her as l do now
| The ranchman's pretty daughter.
-GdlUeston News.
| How She Kept Poultry Clean.
In the Journal of Agriculture Mrs.
Wilcott makes the following pungent
remarks in regard to how she cares for
her poultry:
| find a good way to keep down lice
in hen-house or coop is to cleanse the
movable parts by fire. I clean out the
nests and gather up the rubbish that
will burn. [ then scrape off any filth
that may be in the roost, etc. Then
| set fire to the straw and hold the roosts
| in the blaze one by one until they are
smoking hot. | I'll my nest boxes and
coops. one half full Of straw and wet
them if they are very dry. set it on
fire and turn the boxes down and let
the flame creep out through every crew
ice.
use lime and carbolic acid to white
wash, one spoonful to the gallon of
wash. If there is any lime lett in the
bottom of the bucket I let it dry and
put it in the nest under the straw [
never have the creepy lice that invest
some hen-houses by the millions, and
don't want them. For the lice that in
fest the bodies or heads / used, this
spring, sulphur and pyrethrum powder.
Pyrethrum alone will do when fresh.
Ii there is shed or any place where the
| chickens cOngregate to sit and Wallow,
clean it out at least every two or three
weeks, and every few days throw coal
ashes, il you have them, if not few
| wood ashes, into their wallOWs.
There seems to form a small powder
of filth in such place that creates dis
ease, besides being a fine place for
creepy lice. A neighbor tells me these
pests were thick in a wren's nest in
| their portico last year. Perhaps a
wren's nest in the hen-house would
bring them. love the birds, but l do
not care to have SUI. h pests through
their agency.
When summer comes [ shut nv
chickens out of the hen-house and make
them take to the trees. A grove of low
box alders, so thick the branches min
gle, makes a splendid summer resort
night or day. These trees are quickly
raised and are quite handsome.
| Should Butter Be COlored?
This is mere matter of taste-not so
far as the palate is concerned, but the
| eye. June butter is considered the best
the world over, and this has u beautiful
yellow tint, hard to initiate but which is
closely approximated. Everybody
| likes to see it, and the bogus butter
men are ready to crafty the eye. Their
product, however, is counterfeit. Not
so the genuine butter, except so far as
it's color is concerned. This, then, is an
innocent cheat-a practical white lie"
ON the part of the dairyman. The
color adds nothing to the quality, nor
does it take anything from it, if good
color preparation is used. The amount
is almost infinitesimal. But the color is
fraud-a harmless fraud-which all
manufacturers of butter color are inter
ested in keeping up. 1t enables the
dairyman to make butter of about the
same color the year round. He CAN do
this in another way. Early-cut hay
and corn meal, with oats. middlings,
wheat, corn, or something else to make
up the balance of heterogeneous materials,
will 10 it, If the cows have proper care
and shelter. 1t will even impart some
of the June flavor. This is an excellent
way of coloring butter, and | can COM
mend it without any disposition to in
jure the butter-coior men-notwith-
standing they are powerful accessories
In the manufacture of counterfeit butter.
-Rural NeaU Yorker.
Losses and Gains of Nitrogen In the Soil.
| The results Of the observations made
at Grignon may be summed UP as fol-
lows: All the plots containing notable
quantities Of combined nitrogen Fifteen
grains to the pound), and cultivated
without manure, have lost considerable
proportions of nitrogen. These losses
greatly exceed the demands of the
harvests. They are by no means equal
for all crops, being very rapid in soils
which have been planted with beets,
rather slower for feeding maize, and
still slower for soils which have yielded
| potatoes and wheat. When, after sew
eral years of cultivation without ma
nure, the soil has been impoverished
down to eleven to twelve grains Of
nitrogen to the pound. the losses ceased
and a gain in nitrogen set in. This gain,
trifing in soils under varied cultivation,
has been considerable for grass lands.
Fall Seeding to Grass.
Whether it is best to sow grass seed