Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1892-04-07
THE HOME AND FARM.

house.
Pullets Matched in March and April,
II we'll cared for, car be depended upon
to lay early in the fall.
With the hens that set early it is a
good plan to give them a feed of corn
daily, it produces warmth.
Set the first laying of both turkey
and duck eggs under hens more eggs
and better fowls will be secured.
Young chickens will eat wheat or
sorghum seed when two weeks old, and
they will be better than soft feeds.
Broomcorn should be q profitable crop.
Not only is the seed valuable as food
for poultry, but the brush commands
a ready sale. At the present time the
supply is short and prices well up. 1t
is a crop that is as easily grown as corn.
Those men who say the curculio is a
benefactor to the fruit grower have a
happy faculty of looking on the bright
side of things. They claim he prevents
Owe production. Individually we
should choose over production as the
lesser evil.
An orchard on the farm always adds
more to the value of the farm than the
cost of the orchard. If the trees con
sist of a variety of fruit the advantage
is greater. Every farm should have an
orchard of standard fruit, and no farm
is complete without one.
A single article of food may contain
all elements necessary to sustain life
and promote growth, yet it does not
follow that its use would be economi-
cal. 1t may contain some elements in
excess of needs of the animal. That is
why we are looking for properly bal
anced rations.
A recent visit to the Kalamazoo cell
cry fields taught the writer something
about b%lanching and the cause of rust.
The rust is caused from b|lanching with
earth during warm weather. Until
after September the blanching should
be done only by means of boards, tile
or paper. When the weather grows
colder it may be made waxy white
with earth.
Experience has proven that while
trees on which stable n was used
were healthy and vigorous, yet they
were short lived, while such as were
tertlllzed by ashes were equally Wig r
GUS and far more durable. The conclu-
slons thus forced upon us were that
heavy applications of potash and bone
made healthy trees, while any larger
amount of nitrogen led to the yellows
and other diseases.
Early chicks will have to contend
with filthy grounds, and as gapes are
always present where filth exists, the
places selected for chicks should be
very clean. IL is much easier to pre-
vent gapes than to cure the cases. The
best way to do so is to use air slaked
lime freely N the ground, and use it
often. 1t will do no harm to the chicks
and will prevent gapes and other dis
eases.
Now that stock will soon be going
out to pasture, and so not under your
eye as constantly as it has been during
the winter, take care that their wants
are not neglected in some small mat
tiers. In the matter of salt, for in
stance, do not let them go for a week
without it. Keep it in some convent
ent place where they can help them
selves, and they will not take more
than they need. Put some rock salt
out in the pasture and the cattle will
come and lick it every day, and there
will be very little waste. If you do not
make some provision of this sort you
are pretty sure to neglect it during the
busy t me OF blowing and seeding.
Much partly exhausted land is far
richer than is commonly supposed.
What it has lost is the humus or vege-
table matter that by decomposing fur
nishes heat and helps make mineral fer
tility available. In all heavy soils es-
pecially there are stores of plant food
that the roots can not get at unless
they have the apparent stimulus of a
heterogeneous fertilizer to set them loose.
This explains why light dressings of
composted n or of commercial
fertilizers often produce astounding re-
suits. Their fertility is at once avail
able. They give tne plants a start, and
once started they are able to find all
they need.-American Cultiyator.
1t is not the amount of food con-
sumed, but that digested, which keeps
the horse strong and plump. | put two
quarts of stones the size of small hen
eggs in one OF my managers lately. The
horse did not digest them-in fact, he
did not eat them, but he eats his oats
more slowly now because he can't get
them SO rapidly, and as "a result digests
them fully. 1t is as casy for an animal
to waste food by boiting it as to poke it
through a hole in the manger. Farm
journal.
CLOVER WITH TIMOTHY.
1t is not as generally known as it
should be that on red clover seed,
to the measure of five per cent. of the
whole, sown with timothy seed, will
increase so much the growth of the
grass. The yield over timothy sown by
itself is from twenty to twenty five per
cent. This fact is a practical indorse-
ment of the new doctrine of vegetable
nutrition. Thatnitrogenous plantfood
may be to some extent supplied by mi
crobes, that in rich soils are developed
on the roots of the leguminous plants,
ike CloNer, aLalla, DeanS, peas, etc. IL
is said that nothing else, unless il be
alfalfa, SO much enriches the land on
which it is sown as the castor bean.
This has been attributed to the deep
roots of the plant and the long shading
of the surface, favoring the formation
of the nitrates, but under the light af-
forded by the discovery of the import
ant part played by microscopic germs
in the phenomena of plant nutrition,