Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-03-27
FARM NOTES.

ture.
Every animal must speak for itself,
and only its pedigree can speak for its
offspring.
The coming farmer will trust less to
his eyes and more to foot-rules and
pound-weights.
The value of pedigree is not in its
vouching for ancestry, but in its vouch
ing for offspring.
Rust and rot do more for the imple-
ment maker in winter than wear and
tear do in summer.
The Bohemian oats swindle has gone
East to grow up with the country. It's
played out in the West.
The secrets of large yields always
and everywhere are rich soil, good
seed, and thorough tillage.
The farmer who makes his own pork
and beef puts another bond on health
and pays himself for so doing.
White clover is said to be disappear
ing in some of the Eastern States, but
it is more than holding its own in the
West.
Hoard estimates the annual consump-
ton of butter in this country to be l.
900, 900, 900 pounds-2, 739, 726 pounds
per day.
The Hessian fly is said to have been
introduced into England in the straw
in packing cases. It's a stand off
against the English sparrow.
In making men out of boys, and wo-
men out of girls. consider that the
character of the material has something
to do with how to cut to the best adj
vantage.
A good crop of both corn and weeds
cannot be grown on the same ground
at the same time, any more than two
railway trains can pass each other on
the same track.
Running dairy without a ther-
mometer is rs inconvenient as running
a household without timepiece. The
good workman must have good imple-
ments to produce the best results.
Professor Wolf, of Germany, has
demonstrated by careful experiments
that clover obtains its nitrogen from
the atmosphere; and that, in fact all
plants and the soil obtain their nitro
gen from that inexhaustible source of
supply.
Professor Wiley regards sorghum
seed as second in food value to wheat
and superior to corn and oats. 1t is
being ground into flour for breakfast
pancakes, in which form it beats buck
wheat out of sight.
A Western New York horticulturist
produced a vigorous growth of Della
ware grape vines and large amount
of superior fruit by grating the Della
ware on Concord roots. The grating
was done on one year old roots.
A healthy food for growing pigs may
be made of boiled potatoes, with corn
meal and bran added, in proportion of
five pounds meal and ten pounds bran
to bushel of potatoes. The latter
should be boiled to consistency of this
paste.
The estimated cost of hauling 100
bushels of grain in a wagon over ordin-
airy country roads is 60 cents a mile.
This fact illustrates the necessity and
money value of good roads. The diff
ference in cost of hauling is immensely
in favor of the good road.
1t is not advisable to spread coarse
stable manure, full of bedding, on
mowing-land in winter or any other
time of year. Such manure as that is
suitable only for plow-land. Top-dress-
ing for meadows should always be in
fine, well-rotted condition, and be
spread evenly-not left in heaps.
The Northwest says that any COM
munity which raises good draft horses
will be found prosperous and progress
sive. When half dozen or ten good
teams are put upon the market and
bring into the neighborhood from $3.-
600 to S. 900, it helps everybody in it
and drives the wolf from many a door.
D. w Kurtz in the Colorado Farm
en-, computes that there is a loss of
States, caused by the horns of cattle,
in the death and damage of cattle,
horses, sheep, and swine. and the loss
of food it takes to feed the horned in
excess of what it takes to feed the
hornless animals. Besides this, there
is an average of 200 human beings per
annum killed directly by maddened
horned animals.
There is possibility that careless
readers seeing so much in the papers
about abandoned farms just now, will
think that some sudden depression Or
disaster has overtaken agriculture.
This is not SO. The abandonment of these
farms has been going on, in some cases,
for half century. The general break
ing out of so much newspaper talk
does not imply that the causes are re-
cent. Agriculture of 18S9-90 is not
necessarily under cloud because of
farms that were abandoned anywhere
from ten to fifty years ago.-N b.
Farmer.
Professor Ladd, of the New York Ex-
pertinent Station, says: Zone half of
the money now expended for CONNER
cial fertilizers is wasted, from proper
lack of knowledge as to their use and
the needs of ones soil. With the tons
of nitrogen everywhere about us, con-
shutting four-ffths of all the air, it
seems there should be no need of pur-
chasing this most expensive of all the
fertilizing constituents required in
plant growth, and l believe the time
will come when by proper system of
crop rotation and cultivation we shall
be able to draw our needed nitrogen
from natures bountiful supply"
The low price of beef and dairy pro-
ducts is causing more attention to be
paid to sheep, which in consequence
are growing scarcer. There is another
reason in the great amount of labor
herd of cows make, whether their milk
be sold direct, or made into butter or