Year: 1875

Fruit Garden.

 Selections of various kinds of fruits for planting out the coming spring should be made early, and ordered in time to set out as soon as the ground will permit. In planting a fruit garden for family use, select to embrace both early and late sorts of each kind. With care Tn selecting, the season of each fruit may be greatly extended.

 If new blackberry and raspberry set tlngs are to be made in the spring, and plants are not at hand, order at once, as they start so early that they cannot be planted too soon after the ground is open.

 There is now great variety of straw berries. the plants are remarkably cheap, and every one, rich and poor, should have an abundance. A bed of few rods n extent will supply large family, if cultivated properly.

 Currants coming soon after the straw berries and raspberries, supply a place held by no other fruit; provide enough bushes to freely supply the table during the season, and for jellies and other uses. New plants are easily made from cut tlngs made either in the fall or early spring, and in two or three years these plants will be be abundant bearing, and with proper pruning and manuring may be made to produce fruit of extra size During mild weather, when the wood is not frozen, prune the bushes and pre- servethe cuttings in sand in5 the cellar. The Versailles (red) and white grape are the most profitable. Every spring & dressing of well-rotted manure should be given, and thick mulch applied to keep down all the weeds.

 Gooseberries require the same general cultivation as entrants, but need more pruning to give the plants an open head to admit light and air. The American varieties are best, among these, Tough toms and Downing's seedlings are favo- rites

 The garden culture of the grape is so simple that 1t is strange that no more vines are planted. henumber of varie ties is, now large and the experience of others in the neighborhood is the safest guide in selecting. We have given from time to time the various methods of pruning and training the vine. The matter IS not difficult, the one thing to bear in mind is that the fruit is pro- duced on the new growth, which will start this year from the bnds now on the canes. In pruning, all the buds are cut away, save those needed to form new canes. tssGif 2. EsE-Bt'-.E fg .< si

 Cooking Food and Feeding Stock.

 E. w. Stewart, of the LiVe Stock Joui2aat, advocated cooking for cattle, because 1t renders digestible certain parts of food that are indigestible if uncooked. He detailed experiments in which 1t appeared that one third of the nutriment, especially in natural food, was not digested without cooking, and that consequently one-third was added to the value of such food by steaming or boiling. Another important end is also gained by the rapidity with which cooked food digests. Hay is normal food for eattle-that is, it's bulk is well adapted to the bovine stomach, and the clements of its nutrition are in good pro- portion for nourishing the body and for producing milk. But it is so slow of digestion that q COW cannot possibly di- gest enough to fill her capacity for milk or for producing flesh if it is fed to her in 8 raw state, nor would that capacity be likely to be filled with the addition of raw'mea1. But when both are cooked the utmost. capacity is readily attained.

 He explained at length the nature of bovine digestion, showing that much better results are obtained when fine food IS mixed with coarse. He had fed fine food to cattle ten or fifteen minutes before killing and had found it invaria- ply in the fourth stomach, but food hay ing a certain degree of coarseness was always found in the first stomach or paunch. He fed in these experiments of faI-f foc th0 ,oI He never found any freshly swallowed food, either coarse or fine, ,.in the second or third stomach. He did not, however, advocate cooking as universal practice. If the, herd IS small the cost and labor of cooking might be greater than the advantage gained. But it will, he thinks, pay well in large herds.

 Farm Notes.

 There are one hundred and twenty men residing in six counties in Cali fornia, who are credited with owning 3,140, 900 acres of land.

 An old, experienced farmer once said to new beginner in farming: "Young man, let me give you little piece of ad- vice, will you? Never stir up your soil deeper than you are able to manure it." This is an axiom which it is we'll to re- member. -

 A good deal of loss comes from winter ing the wrong kind of stock, and also from wlntering stock in the wrong way. Winters in the New England and Middle States are heavy expense to the farmer, and still great many farmers carry over stock that IS of no more value in the spring than it was in the fall.

 A Mnipe Farmer correspondent cured cribber of taste for stall-feedine by saturating all the lumber within reach with kerosene. elf horse is inclined to bite through the bottom of the feed box, fit some pieces of board into it, with the grain of the wood running toward his body, and he will make no progress, and soon give up the job."

 D. c. Fisk, of SheIburn, believes in keeping pigs to make manure, and that Ii farmers whose stomachs are too weak to digest pork would go to work with their own hands instead of hiring men to clean out their hog-pens, they would soon be able to digest pork or almost anything else. Such had been his ex- perienee. Better raise pork and use it than to raise tobacco and use that.

 An Indiana correspondent reports a number of instances in that State where farmers who had become wealthy from st 7ady pursuit of their legitimate busi- ness for. a lifetime, have recently lost their entire estates by speculation or by joining hands with their sons in outside enterprises, with the merits of which they had only slight acquaintance. Doubtless these instances can be multi piled throughout the country, but they all teach the one lesson: 'sStick to the business you understand, and never place a mortgage on the farm"

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