The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1897-12-01

that lambs under one year old will
show greater increase from a given
amount of feed than will cattle com
ing two years old, and lhere's the
kernel of the mutt the mutton will
bring a better price than the beefl
You get more pounds of it and more
for it per pound. The clip of wool is
just 50 much extra-thrown in, to
boot. And, Moreover, land this is an.
other important fact) the sheep when
you have sold them, have left your
land richer and cleaner than when
you put them of it.
1t pays to raise sheep.
An institute lecturer once summed
up the advantages of sheep in this
wise, and have kept his summing
up in my scrap book, to keep up my
courage when wool is low in price:
1. They are profitable.
2. They weaken the soil least and
strengthen it most.
3. They are enemies of weeds.
4. The care they need is required
when other farm operations are slack.
5. The amount of investment need
not be large.
6. The returns are quick and
many.
7. They are the quietest and easiest
handled of all farm stock.
8. Other farm products are made
more largely from cash grains, while
those from the sheep are made prin-
cipally from pasture.
8. There is no other product of the
farm that has fuetuated SO slightly in
value as good mutton.
10. By comparison wool costs moth.
ing, for do not the horse and COW in
shedding their coats waste what the
sheep saves?
In conclusion let me repeat: Sheep
pay.
Chemical Reason why Fall Flowing is
Better Than Spring Flowing.
To prepare the ground for the seed
it should be deeply plowed in the
autumn aud cross-plowed, as the land
cannot be plowed in the spring with
out exposing large surface to the
strong drying effects of the spring
winds and thus occasioning the loss
from the soil by evaporation of guam
tity of water proportioned to the in
crease of surface exposed. BY the
reciprocal action of the atmosphere
aud the soil the latter keeps up its
store of available nutritive matters.
The silicates soluble with difficulty
slowly yield alkalies, lime and mag
nesia in soluble forms; the sulphides
are slowly converted into sulphates
and generally the minerals of the soil
are disintegrated and mixed under the
influence of the oxygen, the water, the
carbonic acid and the nitric acid ofthe
air. Again, the atmospheric nitrogen
is assimilable by the soil in the shape
of ammonia, nitrates and the amide-
like matters of humus.
The rate of disintegration, as well
as that of nutriication, depends in
part upon the chemical and physical
character of the soil, and partly upon
the temperature and meteorological
conditions.
Moreover, the soil lying in rough
interfurrows has been subjected to the
action of frost; it is in its upper lay
ers so broken up and divided in all
directions by the powerful expansion
of the water, when converted into ice,
as to be reduced to the condition of
the greatest possible fineness-recog-
nized and so much desired by the far.
mer under the term mellowness.
1t has consequently attained that
degree of pulverization and porosity
which, with an adequate degree of
moisture, affords a solid standing
ground for the young plant, while at
the same time enough air for the de-
velopment of the germ can penetrate
the surface of the soil, and in the up
per layers nutritive material for the
young plant dissolved by the moisture
of the winter is always present. 1t is
therefore in accordance with reason
not to plow the land at all in the
spring, but to put in the seeds with
out further preparation than a prev
ious narrowing.
The vigorous development of plants
depends far less upon the weight and
size of the seed than upon the depth
to which 1t is covered with the earth,
and upon the stores of nourishment
which it finds in its first period of life.
Andrew II. Ward.