The National tribune., 1889-08-15
OUR RURAL TOPICS.
Some Practical Suggestions for Our
Agricultural Readers
FALL FEEDING FOR cows.

carrying ont this wise principle. When the
season is about to end feed is usually scarce and
poor, because preparations are not made for it
in good time and the product of milk falls off
at the very time when it should be kept up for
tho Winter profit. Onco cow loses milk it is
very difficult, and in many cases impossible, to
restore it. Hence fresh, succulent food must
be provided for. The best recourse is field of
aftermath, grass or clover, or pasture which
has been reserved especially for the purpose.
it may be too late now to remedy failure for
the present season, but the warning should be
needed in time for another year Still, some
thing may yet be DONE A planting of early
kinds of sweet corn, sown in rows Is inches
apart and three inches apart in the rows, will
very soon afford very acceptable feed. Millet
may be sown for PASTURE oats sown in August
or September will mako the best of pasture for
the early Autumn, and rye will serve to follow
after the early frosts. II no other way can be
found, some of the best hay, with liberal IA.
ton Of corn-meal, should be given as soon as
the outdoor forage has become scarce. Later.
tho small potatoes may serve as succulent food
along with the hay. Malt sprouts STEPPED in
water and mixed with cut hay have increased
the milk yield more than pasture has done.
This food is very pleasant and palatable TO the
cows, aud exceedingly nutritious and produc-
tive OF rich milk. II can be purchased cheaply
in Summer and Fall when 10 Is not much In de-
mand. Bran and shorts have great value both
as food products and for enriching the manure
and cotton seed meal fed with care and iudg
ment is valuable Apples are worth more to
| feed to cows than for cider.
HOW CORN SHOULD BE CULTIVATED.
As this is the time of the year TO cultivate
corn. we thought few words on this subject
might be of great interest to the readers of the
| Rural Home. 1t is with the cultivation of corn
as with all other teachings, so far as humanity
| is concerned; we must give line upon line, pre-
| cept upon precept, here little and there u
! little. If we would thoroughly Undue them with
| the principles aud practices of the most sue
cessful. Ia view of the prospect of dry
season, II appears but appropriate that VIC
| should stir up the minds of the good farmers
| by way Of remembrance of the effects of the
dry seasons on their crops in years gone by,
and to warn them rs far rs their province lies
TO guard against like results in the future.
| must assume that the ground was we'll and
| properly prepared, and the seed properly plant
| cd. This being the case, the results depend
mainly on the farmer himself If the corn
| gets start aud the roots get bold on the soil
they will cling TO their right Of possession and
! hold up the stalk If protected by their owner
| and have the proper encouragement but IL the
! guillotine Is applied as soon as tho corn comes
| 30 light and is kept going all Summer the crop
! must be n failure. Cultivation, then, IL the
| crop Is to be saved, consists not in using tho
! long pointed shovels, and by their use cut off
| three fourths of the rootlets, but in pulveriz.
| Ing tho surface and thus forming mulch aud
| conserving the moisture. The farmer must
not be deceived by the impression that by cut
ting of the lateral roots he increases the growth
OF the hbrous roots Il has been our experience
the last two years that level cultivation
without cutting tho roots Is what Is wanted.
| We have fully tested u and are convinced that
to go into field Of corn with shovel pl0w,
with large. long shoyels, Is n serious mistake
aud ruinatlon 10 your corn crop. Shallow
tillage is MI that 1t wants. So If the farmer
fails 10 get a good crop under ordinary crcum-
stances let him blame himself There are i'm
plernenis for shallow tiilage which will do the
| work batter, cheaper aud easier than shoveis.
Raral Home.
GOOD UurrER MAKING.
Too few realize that their way of making Is
not the method by which the butter is made
which brings the highest price No one is sell
ing butter now NJ advance aud paying prices,
who still ciings to Grandmother's - way of
making Neither does the market put pre-
MUM on butter made from actively sour cream,
nor butter with pronounced buttcrmilk flavor.
or made sharp with oynr.sating. Butter, to
bring high price, must be made of cream not
over 80 hours old, slightly acid. IL must be
washed free from buttermik with weak brine,
and sailed not 10 exceed three quarters of an
onpcc ta the pound. Butter also needs 10 be-
packed in some of tho cheap bat tasteful pack
ages now obtainable aud sent TO market i'm
neiiately. IonE-keeping butter is no longer
called for. Butter il made 20 SELL not 20 keep,
| aud tho consumer says " to eat fresh, not held
until devoid Of fine flavor or aroma" The
great evil is that so much butter Is made by
those who have a few cows that they cannot
make specially of fine butter making, and so
make as BEST suits them. This butter made
from old aud often fermenting cream Is Mt the
start destitute of butter flavor II is not wash
cd free from buttermilk but worked over"
with ladies', "baled up" and sent to the gro
Gerry store, unprotected from tho light and air,
and then consigned TO the IS shoe box" When
at last-wecks, may be, though IL should only
have been days at tho most-this butter finds
It's way 10 the city markets 10 be rejected and
neglected, IL Ii finally sold for few cents per
pound. and actually sco1fed at by the prescribed
oleomargarinc.-Am Agricaltarist.
soTEB
~ Experienced daIrymen toll us that reeu-
lary gaiting cows saves much time In churn-
ing, besides preventing failure of milk.
-- There was SO per cent more oleomargarine
made last year In the United States than the
year before-45, 100000 pounds to 10000 000
An exchange suggests that new Ice house
should be located la the shade of "a tree, if pos
sible, and in northern exposure, while cow
house or hen-house should have just tho oppo-
site position.
49, To destroy tho striped cucumber bugs a
reader writes: Take half peck of plaster,
one and Il half tablespoonlnls OF cayenne pep
per, and mix the substances well. Sprinkle
a small quantity on each hill aud the plants
have used this remedy for years, and never
lose vine from the bugs"
~ There is big grapevine at Santa Barbara,
Cal, which covers area Of three acres of
land. Another, near there at MOntserrat
which was planted 30 years ago, which. where
IL begins 10 branch, th rec feet from the ground
is Us inches in circumference. 1t covers an
area OF 100 by 90 feet, aud has yielded four and
one-half tons of grapes in single season.
One instanee0f the evil influences of habit |
Is the persstency with which some farmers
keep up tho custom of killing their hogs at a |
particular time In the year. Frcsh pork Is
wanted in large markets all the time, aud ii is
often the case that the farmer loses more than
the price of the food by keeping a hog three
months to wait for "killing time"
The peculiarities of the season have pro-
duced as fine growth of grain and vegetables
as We have ever noticed In all tho country south
OF latitude A0S. The woods bear q vast amount
OF foliage rank and green; corn and potatoes,
wherever properly planted, promise great har-
vests. In Eastern Tennessee, south of tho
mountains, as fast as the showers admit farmers
are cutting aud securing a fair orop of wheat