The Opelousas courier., 1890-02-08
FARM AND GARDEN NOTES.

There would be much better satisfac-
ton to most farmers if they would make
corn the minor instead of the principal
ration for their breeding swine.
The farmer who thinks cattle can pick
their own living from late autumn grass
is not wholly wrong, for they can get a
living, but the farmer must not expect
profit from such feeding.
1t is not necessary to claim that en-
silage is more nutritious and palatable
when it comes out of the silo than when
it went in, for it is enough to know that
its properties are fairly well preserved.
When a large amount of grass roots,
and also grain stubble is plowed under,
the land will be benefited proportion
ately, and by blowing under vegetable
matter the ground will gain in nitrogen.
Wvandottes make excellent market
fowls. White Wyandottes are being
sought after for this purpose, they look
SO tempting when ready for the table
and the upper price is obtained for them.
1t may cost less to buy cows than to
raise them on the farm; nevertheless, it
is better to raise them, for then one may
know what they are, and they will do
better, as a rule, than cows shifted from
place to place.
Good country roads may be regarded
as one of the highest evidences of civiliza-
ton, but there are many places where
AZ a-5o,,o 80 Mt found in SIlPh
abundance as to become tiresome to
jewellers along them.
Thickened boiled corr meal and oat
meal mixed with chopped suet and a
little ~pulverized charcoal every few days,
will fatten turkeys in eighteen days.
They should be kept in a partially dark
ened shed or stable while being fat
tened.
If your poultry house is built with
double walls you are pretty sure of pro
lection to the fowls against the coolest
weather. They will be laying all winter
while your neighbor has very few eggs.
Providing they are supplied with proper
food.
No succulent food is more greedily
eaten by pigs at any age than beets. They
may be fed any time from the first thin
nings during the growing season to the
fully grown roots in winter. They are
especially valuable asa part of the winter
food for breeding sows, and some beets
should always be saved for that purpose.
The object of ~caponizing fowls is to
improve the quality and increase the
quantity of the flesh. Poultrymen, and
especially farmers, have the impression
that it is a very difficult operation to
~caponize a fowl, fraught with all sorts
of danger to the life Of the bird, andt1R
only be performed bya skillful expert.
This is a wrong impression.
The "why'' for not disturbing milk
while the cream is rising, Is a very sim
pie one. The cooling of the milk causes
currents in the fluid, the end of which
| is to deposit fats at the surface. When
these are disturbed by dipping or other
| wise, these currents are broken and the
particles of fat go floating aimlessly
| about, and some of them never reach the
top.
Do not waste wood ashes. They are
of sufficient value to pay for saving and
applying to the soil. When applied to
the soil they aid greatly in reducing the
organic matter in the soil to its mineral
elements, and in setting free abundant
nitrogen from it also. Thus, being q
valuable plant food, it is also an effectivt
provider of other food substances, with.
out which vegetation could not attain its
highest vigor.
There is little difficulty in retaining
potatoes in nearly as good a condition a
those freshly dug, provided the temper
allure is kept SO low that they will mo-
sprout or grow, the skin being nearly
impervious to moisture, 81 that they viii
not wilt. Beets, turnips, and especial,
turnips, become withered and dry in
comparatively short time, and it is essential
to imbed them in a suitable packing sub
stance to prevent the escape OF moisture
! Sometimes after threshing cows turned
into the barnyard at night, with access t.
a fresh straw stack, will pick at the chat
and eat enough to diminish their mill
! flow. It is this often, rather than tn
] diminished pasture, that lessons the mill
| Weld al this season. We have known
farmers to put a fence around the stack
SO as to keep their cows from inlurint
| themselves at it, as a simple-minded per
SON is said once to have put a fenc
around a very poor lot to keep his stool
from grazing on 1t.