The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1897-08-18

should have access 10 salt. a flock
will visit the sailing place twice a day
regularly. Salt is good tonic aud
prevents indigestion, which produces
destructive diarrhoea, all the worse
when the weather is warm.
Smut does not pass from stalk to
stalk in the cornfield, and there is no
danger of contamination in this way.
The infection takes place when the
corn is young, the terminating spores
entering the tenderest part-the root,
node and lowest joint; and after the
disease is once in the plant no applica-
ton will do the least good.
Salt is an important aid to digestion,
and especially so to all ruminant ami
mails. If cows are not salted frequent
ly they will eat more than is good for
them when they do not get access to
salt. In large quantities salt is laxa-
tive, it being an irritant to the bowels
which are therefore purged to get rid
of It. Failure TO salt regularly will
make the cream more difficult 10 turn
into butter, thus repaying the farmer
for his carelessness 10y giving a longer
and harder job at churning.
Irrigation is bringing more land into
cultivation and also increasing the
yields of crops. This will have mark
ed influence on the future of farmers
and will bring into use more impie-
ments and vehicles. What is crafty
ing is the fact that with the various
methods of irrigation comes the cheap
er cost of so doing. IL will be but a
decade when every well-regulated farm
will have its irrigating plant, and the
liability OF loss from droughts will be
reduced TO minimum. Implement
Age.
Professor III. J.. Van Deman says
that Il crop of clover or COW peas plow-
cd under every two or three
years in the orchard will stimulate
growth sufficiently, and rs it would
take twenty loads of stable manure per
acre to do the same, the former is the
cheaper. He thinks also that 600
pounds each of Inuriate Of potash and
dissolved bone or phosphate rock per
acre should be applied. But this can
not be necessary every year until an
orchard is bearing heavy crops and
shows signs of impoverishment-
1t has frequently been asserted that
the brilliant colors of many flowers
serve TO attract bees and butterflies to
them. Experiments recently reported
TO the Belgian academy of Science
seem to show that the perfume rather
than the color of the flower is the real
attraction. Bright-colored blossoms
were covered with leaves and papers
pinned closely over them, yet the in
sects not only visited the hidden flow
ers, but endeavored to force their way
under the paper in order to reach the
blossoms which they could not see.
Success in dairying must depend not
only on having cows able to give lib
eral mess and keep at it, but also on
the kind of mixers employed. a care
less, lazy milker viii easily lose more
than his wages during the time he is
employed. Not only this, he will con-
vert really good COW into poor one.
The milk which the careless milker
leaves in the udder is always that
whicl, has the largest amount of butter
fats. If is not drawn the fat is reab-
sorbed into the COW and helps TO dry
her off. The difficulty i'm getting help
that can he depended on is the greatest
drawback in running a large dairy
farm. 1t is no light job TO milk 10, l.
or more cows twice every day. 1t will
make any mans hands tired until he
becomes used to it.
Some of the reasons for tainted milk
are as follows: Cows drinking from
stagnant and muddy pools of water
and dragging their udders through ii,
when the germs will adhere to the lat
ter, and will be dropped into the milk
pail; dirty, sinking barns, sinking
water tanks where milk is cooled;
COWS in heat, sick cows; poor ventila-
ton, bad air where cows are MIXED;
milk kept too long in foul air before
being aerated and cooled; the use of
wooden buckets for milking; lack Of
sufficient care in aerating the milk
near contaminated places, such rs the
hog pen.
Wafer passes through the soil, TAX
ing but little soil matter with it in solu
ton, showing that the plant food con-
stituents are comparatively insoluble
in water. Much of the materials ad-
ded to soils as sources of fertility is
likewise only partly soluble i'm the
moving waters of the soil. 1t is there
fore apparent that the elements of nu-
triton either naturally or artificially.
present in the soil would he compara-
lively inaccessible TO the growing crop,
but would remain locked up in the
soil, were the dissolving power of wa
ter the only available means for its
conversion into solution and thus be-
coming assimilable to the plant.
1t is not likely that alfalfa, the clover
which has succeeded so well in Cali
fornia, will ever become plentiful in
the East. Our wet winters will rot the
roots or at least decrease their vigor.
On very dry, sandy or gravelly soil it
might succeed here. But it seems to
be especially adapted to hot and dry
climates, and hence its success in the
arid regions of the far West. AS its
root often goes several feet deep 1t is
likely to change the character of the
climate, for wherever alfalfa roots have
gone water will also go. The alfalfa re-
tains it greenness during the severest
droughts. OF course, it must be all
the time evaporating moisture, and
this also will have some effect i'm
changing the climate. Hence i'm To-
calities too dry for corn, alfalfa is TAX
ing its place as feed for all kinds of
stock. 1t is at the sime time fitting
the soil for growing corn and other
Cultivator.
As the method Of cultivation changes