Year: 1877

Farm Rakings.


GUINEA HENS, it is said, in addition to
laying more and better eggs than CON-
mon fowl, will, each of them, keep an
acre Of potatoes clear Of beetles, and an
swer every purpose of barometer in
predicting the weather. These days are
as prolific in finding new uses for old
things as in discovering and inventing
new devices.


APPLIES and pears viii keep and color
better and bring a higher price, if picked
few days before they are quite ripe,
and the best way to determine the pre-
else time when this should be done is,
instead of pulling the fruit down, to lift
it up, bend the stem over, and if it parts
from the twig without breaking, it may
be at once gathered.


TIE qualities OF hay are pithily stated
in the old saying: "Timothy for
muscle; clover for milk; corn for fat. :"
Hence, timothy is the hay for horses
and young stock, and clover for milch
COWS. People are generally too reckless
in feeding cattle promiscuously with
whatever they have to give them. with
out taking much pains to make a proper
selection. -


Mich COWS will need some fresh fod
der as soon as the pastures have become
dry and hard. Those VINO have provid-
ed some fodder crop will keep up the
supply of milk; those who have not will
now regret their neglect. There are
some farmers who make more than 9TH
ers, some make but little, but the best
might do little better, and at this sea-
son this truth comes home.


A NEW method of onion-growing is
strongly recommended by French hor-
ticulturist. Some of the seedlings in
the original bed should be left standing
at intervals of about a COUPLE Of inches,
and the spaces between them caused by
the removal of the rest filed in with
good garden mold, mixed with pigeons
dung, or ordinary feces. The beds
must be kept we'll watered and it Is said
the resulting crop will astonish the
grower.


AS means of preparing land for
spring crops, there is none better than
what is k1own as fall following. Our
dryer season makes this as effective in
cleaning soil as the English farmers
summer-fallow. Two plowings may be
given, if necessary, before the winter,
and a final deep plowing for the last
will leave the soil in fine condition in
spring for root-crops or corn. If any
fall-fallowing is to be done, it should be
begun at once.


Cows AND sheep are pastured together
in equal numbers by the thrifty farmers
of Holland. The sheep, to whom
scarcely anything in the way of pastur-
age is Objectionable, eat the hard and
wiry grasses which the COWS reject, keep
the turf closely cropped, improve the
fertility of the soil by their droppings
scattered everywhere about it, an pre-
vent the growth of bushes, weeds and
shrubs. In addition to these benefits, a
small flock of good sheep would furnish
supply of cheap, wholesome and con-
venient meat for the household, while
their fleece would make welcome ad-
dition to the cash account, and their
lambs make good the losses made by the
larder. This is surely one of the lessons
our own farmers might learn with profit
from the practice of other countries.


SAVING straw for fodder should be
practiced by every prosidcnt farmer.
Much of it is careiessly wasted or feck-
lessly burnt, yet it is conceded ON all
hands that most of the enormous losses,
which, during the past year, have been
incurred by the cattIe-owners of Cali
fornia by the death of their stock from
starvation, might have been avoided
had the advice of far-sighted agricult-
ural papers on this point been needed.
Straw, when early cut and properly
cured, has somewhat OF the quality of
clover, and, with little additional feed
in winter, it will, if stacked and cared
for, keep cattle in good condition, make
abundant manure, and thus restore to
the soil much of the fertility of which
the growth of the crop deprived it. Hay
may in this way be economical for sale
or use, cattle kept fat and sleek, and the
farmer be amply rewarded for the little
extra trouble needed to insure these
beneficial results.