Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1893-05-25
FARM AND GARDEN.
Try and Keep a Good Start
With the Spring Work.
SAVE ALL MANURE FROM STOCK.
Spring the Season for All Kinds of
Transplanting and Setting
Out WOrk-NOtes.

By all means sow some clover this
spring. Seed is high, vet we cannot
well do without this useful plant. We
need it in our rotations. We require it
both to furnish the best OF hay for our
stock as well as to maintain the fertility
OF the soils OF our farms.
Try and keep a good start with the
spring work, and then keep ahead. The
man who keeps ahead OF his work does
not labor as hard in the end as he who
is behind. How everything drags and
how discouraging it is to perform every
farm operation just few days later than
it should have been done, and how much
loss such a practice entails. So it is
good advice, though often hard to follow:
" Push the work and don't let the work
push you"
Do not fail to prepare the soil properly
for the reception of the seed. Fine up
and pulverize until it becomes perfectly
loose and mellow. This is the very foun-
dation OF farm work, and when this is
sighted how can satisfactory results be
reasonably expected? Then do not omit
incessant tillage and cultivation through
out the growing season. Keep at it.
Do not turn out the stock to pasture
too early. Spring is trying to the con-
stitution. Winds and rains are preva-
lent, and these are precisely the right
conditions for stock to take cold and be-
come sick. There is no saving in this
premature pasturing, for the grass has
perhaps barely started. 1t contains
much water, and cropping in early does
cattle small good and very likely dimin-
ishes the later yield. Furthermore, the
ground, being soft, is poached and the
sod badly injured. Make the change
from grass to hay very slowly, and thus
prevent disorders, which are liable to
occur.
Spring is the season for all kinds of
transplanting and setting-out work;
so improve the farm by establishing Or
chards and small fruit patches that will
in future years provide the family with
most healthful fruit, furnish a source of
income and improve the appearance and
value OF the farm. 1t seems paradoXical
that so many farmers and their families
scarcely taste fruit in any quantity. Ru-
raj people should certainly take hold of
all the blessings which their lot affords.
Plant potatoes early. Blight and rot
generally affect late paintings more seri-
ously than the early ones. Commercial
fertilizers are preferable to stable ma
nures, as the latter seem under certain
conditions much more favorable to the
spread and propagation of the dread
"scab." The ground for potatoes should
be plowed deeply and the seed put down
, pretty well, say four or five inches. Level
. culture is easier and better than the old
fashioned chill culture"
Save all the manure from all the stock,
and by all is meant the entire fertilizing
, | Iy,,a hot Ia cplil o,,l lipril
ments. Manures are shamefully wasted,
;; and our impoverished soils are cheated
, of their just dues and needs; and year
by year they become more and more eX-
hausted. What wonder that crops grow
r less and less and we hear the complaint
that farming does not pay?" Turn
over new leaf. Employ absorbents,
such as straw, meadow hay, land plaster,
sawdust and coal ashes, freely and cur
tail this expensive waste.
There are advantages in special farm
ing as well as in general farming. There
are also disadvantages in each. In spe-
cial farming there is more concentration
of effort possible; but if the specially
fails, as all will occasionally, then there
is nothing to fall back upon. If mans
: land is particularly suitable for one crop,
let him "go into it" extensively, but
yet produce to a secondary extent some
other crops as a partial dependence.
ASPARAGUS CULTURE.
Noel Cooley of Ottawa read at the re-
, cent Northern Illinois Horticultural So
, ciety's meeting one of the best papers OF
its kind that we have heard in a long
while, says o. j. Farmer. 1t was short
and brief, but everything to the point.
He said asparagus depends first on the
man, second on the soil, third on conve-
= nient and cheap fertilizers, fourth on
, convenient and cheap labor and fifth on
transportation and markets. The soil
should be deep, sandy, black loan, with
a porous subsoil and well tile-drained.
: Fertilize most literally; he has no use
] for salt Home markets are best. The
' variety he uses is Purple Giant, and he
, finds Conover's Colossal of no account.
1 Plow twelve inches deep, and set one
year-old plants eighteen inches apart in
rows three feet apart. Dig holes large
enough to receive the plant roots in nat
ural position and eight inches deep.
Firm the earth well over the plants, 200
OF which are all that is needed for good
sized family. For the best results culti-
vate and fertilize well for two years be-
3 fore cutting.
/, AGRICULTURAL NOTES.
Set or 81 break up" the broody hen at
; once.
See that the fowls have fresh water
, and pure air, but not damp quarters or
drafts.
Ii the coops for little chicks are on the
r barn floor, give them some fresh earth
! for a carpet.
Do not put off the churning until con-
venient, but churn the cream when il is
ripe, whether you have much or little.
. It costs as much to make butter that
will sell sell for soap grease as a first
class article that will sell at fancy price.
II you have to confine YOUR fowls so
that they have but small run, be sure
you keep it well spaded-that is, spade
it often.
Whitewash the eoops before using
them this spring it gives an air OF neat.
ness and an air of healthful-an air full
.. OF health.
Even now the average profit in horse
breeding is greater than it has been in
half OF the other lines OF business dur
| ing the past five years.
, Cattle are often fed too long for a profit.
; The better and more profitable plan is
to feed more liberally from the start and
then market the steer earlier.
H.