The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1892-07-28

cash to destroy weeds, briars an,
brush, say from 81 to So head. Thes
tgures are not unreasonable, and ar,
verlned on many well managed farm
i, by progressive agriculturists.
KEEPING IRISH POTATOES.
There is no difficulty about raisin!
potatoes in Texas, but there has al
ways been great deal about keep
ing them after digging.
have tried pretty nearly every plal
suggested and found them all failures
Some are little better than others
but none of them perfect cure, and
doubt If anything short of cold stor
age will fill the bill in our climate
But anything that will prolong tn,
soundness and usefulness of the potat,
for even a short time is of value ant
deserving of trial.
think L have discovered plal
that promises relief. In blowing my
potato land for fall crop have no
ticed that many tubers which haC
been accidentally left iii the grounc
were perfectly sound, while the ma
jority of the same crop taken up ano
stored in barn or cellar had rotted OF
become so soft and semi decayed as tC
he unfit for human food. This led me
to the conclusing that "mother earth
was the cellar in which to store pota.
toes during the hot summer months
To test my theory, when L plowed up
my crop in the beginning of June, l
ran very deep double furrow and
filled 1t with potatoes as fast as they
were gathered from adjoining rows. 1
covered them with loose, moist soil
to a depth Of about two inches
and over that placed a cover
ing of grass and pototo vines
to ward off the sun heat. An exami-
nation made few days ago proves
that the tubers are as sound IS the
day they were dug, while some of the
same crop spread one deep Oh the
barn floor were wilted or rotten. 1 do
Lot claim that 1 have discovered a
perfect cure under all conditions, but
my experience may serve as a sugges-
ton to others and lead to further ex-
pertinent in that line.
PROFITABLE DAIRYING.
| notice that you are constantly
preaching to the dairy farmers to i'm
prove their cows, says correspond
ent in Hoard's Dairyman.
You tell us that whereas our cows
now average only $50 pounds of but
ter a year we must improve by better
feeding, care and breeding so that
they will yield 300 pounds per cow.
| think, myself, there is good sense in
the ad wise for the fellows who Jump
into the practice right away, but sup
pose every dairyman does the same
thing and SO doubles the production,
where will we be then? Figure this
out for us. Well, that is easy. The
central reason for our advice is to
make dairymen see that they
must keep only a profitable cow, and
that by such road only can they ex-
pect good COWS. Now, whenever the
thing does happen, that
everybody has 300 pound COWS and
the production of butter is ruinously
Dverdone, our advice would be to re-
duce the number of cows. Indeed
that advice applies to the present
time. If every dairy farmer in the
land would resolve to reduce his herds
to simply the cows that pay profit
on what they consume, we would see
4 big revolution in the profits of the
business. So many thousands of
armers do not know where they are,
Tor W hat kind of cows they are keep
ng, nor where the big leaks are that
ire running away with their profits.
)ne of the biggest leaks is the po@r
cow kept at a loss because her owner |
ion't know any better, and he is afraid |
t would make him deadly sick if be
ried to know.
WIDE TIRES FOR WAGONS.
The narrow tires on heavy draft |
wagons is one of the most potent |
causes of our bad roads. In fact we |
IAN have no permanently good roads,
except at ruinous cost. until
,ur wagon tires are widened
md the gauge varied.
No matter how soundly and scientific
,ally our roads may be constructed
hey must give way to the constant
pressure and friction of narrow tired
wheels travelling on the same sur
ace. This is we'll understood in Eu-
'opean countries where the highways
IRE as near perfect as the skill Of man
;dD D1dht LII l. nbSO thu oOi-
yium have seen farm and freighting
wagons with tires six inches wide
md in some places the front axle is
Xix inches shorter than the rear so
hat the wheels bear on twelve
inches of road on each side
If the wagon. 1t will thus
oe seen that it is practically lmpos,i-
ole for ruts to form. 1t has been pro-
posed to double the tax of any person
using q wagon with a tire less than
5hree inches in width and to reduce
the tax in proportion to the increase
in width. There is a good deal of
sense in the proposition, as a direct
tax on narrow tires would more
quickly demonstrate the economy of
wide ones, than volumes of written
or the eloquence of 10000
orators.
The present exclusive use of
narrow tires is doubtless cue
to the impression that wide
ones increase the draft.
his is foreign to the fac6. The re-
reverse is true. The draft is not in
creased but diminished, and it takes
very little reflection to see why. A
narrow tire will sink into ground
over which a wide one would roll,
hacking and solidifying it.
Our black land roads now the terror