Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-07-30

Gusts. Whip-poor-will for moths.
Hawks, all night birds, owls, ETC., tana-
gers, and black-winged summer red
birds-curculios. There may also be
mentioned the following insect pest de-
strOyers: Nut crackers, fly catchers,
chimney swifts, indigo birds, chipping
and song sparrows, black birds, mock
ing birds, orchard orioles.
Frequent Cultivation.
In the season of hay1ng and harvest
ing with which farmers are now busted
the hoed crops are apt to be overlooked
as of secondary importance. In one
sense they may properly be considered
secondary, as matured crops must be
harvested, even though those yet sub
ject to future contingencies be neglect
ed. But in another sense, that of good
farming, nothing is to be counted insig-
nifcant. The farmer who neglects one
thing to attend better to another sub
jects himself to the reproof, "These
things ought We to have done and not to
leave the other undone." 1t requires
greater executive ability and better
judgment in adapting means to ends to
entirely succeed in farming than to win
success in almost anything else. Good
farming is systematic whole, and the
violation of any precept destroys its
symmetry, much as one of the apostles
says that men do who transgress even
the smallest part of the moral law. If
he breaks in one point there is infrac-
ton of law as truly, though certainly
not as dangerous, as if he transgressed
the entire moral code.
Neither in morals nor farming is en-
tire perfection to be attained by men.
If that were necessary, who indeed
l. Il II,
cultural papers can do is to initiate the
preachers and point out week by week
the special dangers that beset the path
way of man and of the farmers. Neg
lecting live crops during the haying and
harvesting season results usually from
trying TO do too much, from having too
littlo help both of men and of teams.
1t is easily possible for a man and
strong horse with cultivator to increase
the corn crop often S., $40 or more per
day by extra cultivation. This same is
true of potato tubers and of beans, with
the addition with regard to these last
named crops that If the work is not
done seasonably a too late cultivation
may do injury rather than good. After
the potatoes begin to set much cultva-
ton may do injury rather than good.
After the potato tubers begin to set
much cultivation may start a new set,
and the hill will produce nothing but
small potatoes. After beans begin to
blossom, cultivation blights the pods,
and Injuries rather than helps the crop.
Even corn at certain stages of caring
may be injured by deep cultivation,
provided very dry spell follows.
Just at the hottest and also the bust
est season is the time to keep the cult
vator going for still another reason. 1t
is just then that the mysterious process
of Gitriication in the soil goes forward
most rapidly Nothing SO promotes
this as frequent stirring, admitting more
air to be decomposed, and at the same
time keeping the lower soil not only
moister, but probably also warmer, by
checking too rapid evaporation. Dur
ing the present season this daily cult
Walton in midsummer is more neces-
sary, from the fact tnat corn is late, and
in many places the fields are unusually
weedy, because it is not possible in the
soaked condition of the soil to harrow it
before or after the corn came up, SO as
to destroy the weeds while they were
small. More hand labor will also be
necessary around the hills where the
cultivator cannot reach. Every days
removing the weeds much harder.
1t is certain that these widely prevail
ing conditions must shorten the corn
crop, unless farmers are unusually act
i've, and hire much more help than most
of them have. But as corn will bring a
better price for these drawbacks, the
extra half if at all procurable can be
better afforded. 1t is sometimes said
that hot weather in July and August
makes a large corn crop. 1t does when
the land is seasonably cleaned of weeds
earlier. But hot weather following the
recent wet spell makes weeds grow as
well as the hoed crops, and IN such a
race, unless the farmer interposes,
weeds will always come out ahead.
Freeing the land of weeds is not only
necessary for the present crop, but for
future crops as well. Their seeds re-
main in the soil for years, and soil
once thoroughly seeded to weeds be-
comes ever after more a plague than
profit to it's owner. The farmers of this
country happily mostly own the land
they till. 1t should therefore be their