12 



THE FARM AND GARDEN. 



"Vol. T^., IsTo. 11 



CONTENTS OP THIS NUMBER. 

 Page 1.— Farewell to the Garden, by Josepli. 

 PaEe 2.— Gardening in Florida, by W. C. Steele. NoEx- 



cellence Without Labor. Tobaccco Culture, 



by Thos. D. Balid. 

 Page 3.-A Tool House, by W. D. Boynton. My Exper- 

 imenlal Plot. The Best is Best, by E. E. 



Rex ford. 

 Page 4. -The Wilson Jr. Blackberry. A Practical Mode 



ot Growing Strawberries, by C. S. Rowley. 

 Page 5.— A Dish of Grapes. 

 Page 6.— Our Flower Garden. 

 Page 7.— Our Flower Garden (continued). 

 Page 8.— Feeding Swine, by John M. Stahl. Sheep on 



Enclosed Areas. 

 Page 9.— The Poultry Yard. 

 Page 10.— The Household. 

 Page 11.— Odds and Ends. 

 Page 12.— Editorial Comment. 

 Page 13.— Clippings. 

 Page 14.— Correspondence. 

 Page 15.— Marks by Jack Frost. 

 Page 16.— A Collection. 



• Gdiifoi^ial Comment. 



Bv a special arrangement with the publishers 

 of the Home and Farm we are enabled to offer it 

 ■with The Farm and G.^rden for the low price 

 of 75 cents. It is a senii-inonthly paper, and 

 very alilv edited. Try it for the year. 



Save feed by getting your turkeys, etc., ready 

 for market by Thanksgiving. It does not pay to 

 feed fowls all the winter to sell them in spring, 

 except with " winter chickens." They eat more 

 than they are worth in the spring. 



Many other ways of saving will suggest them- 

 selves to the thiiiking farmer. If he attends to 

 them carefully, he will save his equilibrium, 

 morally, mentally and physically, and often his 

 cquanim^iy, which is endangered by the indul- 

 gence in unnecessay political discussions. Never 

 mind the country ; that is safe. 



October. When we see two great political par- 

 ties willing, nay, anxious to "save the country," 

 we need not be alarmed; yet there is one safe- 

 guard or safetv-valve which inspires us with a 

 feeling of absolute security — the good sense of the 

 farmer, the farmer wlio constitutes a majority of 

 the voters. 



October, indeed, is more a time of saving than 

 of producing, and if every fiirnier, witli his usual 

 good sense, attends to tlie "saving " in liis sphere, 

 the country at hirge is safe enough. We must 

 bear in mind that the crops and their saving is of 

 such vital importance to 

 hiJTayrhirp^Sr,! the country-s prosperity, 

 Bent the Farm and Oari.km that tile result o( the pres- 

 t. 4 ueighbor—enly ♦!. ,.„t ],„litic>al struggle, 

 compared with the former, will sink into insigni- 

 ficance. JfThe blessings derived from liis own 

 efforts in this saving business come liome to every 

 farmer; he can reach and feel llieui with his 

 hands ; tliose resulting from tlic success or failure 

 of one or tlie oilier of the political jiarties, he can 

 neither feel nor see. If we want light, let us 

 strike a match, ratlier than try to reach for the 

 stars. Help to save the country by saving your 

 own productions and by turning tliem to the best 

 account. 



Store potatoes and root cro))s in cellar, root 

 house or pits. Every farmer shouUl have a root 

 house near his dwelling house and avoid storing 

 large quantities of vegetables right under the 

 rooms used by him and his family. 



Pick and barrel your apples. There is hardly 

 abetter wav to jireserve apples sound and fresli 

 and of good flavor until spring, than by pitting 

 them. Cover very lightly at first and give ven- 

 tilation at the top. Put on more soil as the 

 weather gets colder. A second covering of four 

 or six inclies of straw and a few inclies of soil is 

 far preferable to one of coarse barnyard manure, 

 safer, on account of the dead air space, and cer- 

 tainly cleaner. Apples in pits need less winter 

 protection than potatoes. 



Husk corn in the field when the weather per- 

 mits. It is a saving of time. Keep a few loads 

 of shocks in the barn or under a shed for a rainy 

 day. 



Draw the corn-fodder and put it under shelter 

 as soon as husked and dry enough. Do not wait 

 until half of its nutriment is washed out by re- 

 peated rains. 



Put your tools under shelter, paint the wood 

 and oil the steel parts. 



Examine your stalks and fix them, if necessary, 

 80 they will sited water. The rainy season is 

 approaching. 



Thresh all crops as soon as possible and sell 

 the surplus. Have granaries tight. 



Save nnni'ci'ssary sufl'ering to your stock by 

 giving shelter in cold storms. 



Save the flow of milk in your cows by liberal 

 feeding. 



Utilize warm fall weather. Hogs fatten quicker 

 and with less grain at such time, while the heat, 

 in cold weather, has to be supplied by a larger 

 allowance of corn. 



Corn, burnt or scorched on the cob, and fed 

 liberally to hogs, is a sure preventive as well as 

 remedy" for the cholera. It is also good for laying 

 fowls or fattening turkeys.. 



We have seen it recommended to put a layer of 

 oats under the sand of the propagating bed ii tlie 

 greenhouse. What say our florists ? 



We have taken not a little pains to a.scertain 

 the real value of the " Martin .\mber Wheat." 

 We saw the originator, W. J. Martin, of Colum- 

 bia, Pa., at the Granger's pic-nic at William's 

 Grove, Pa., during the last week of August, and 

 have talked with a large number of fanners who 

 had gnnvn this wheat for one or two seasons. 

 There was not one dissenting voice. All agreed 

 that the Martin Amber has proved to be the best 

 yieldcr and the best for flour. Millers, however, 

 who use rollers, grade the Martin as "second." 

 Mr. Martin a.sserts that three pecks of seed per 

 acre are amply sufficient with him on common 

 soil, and that two pecks on soil good for twenty- 

 five bushels per acre, have given good results. 

 He was borne out in this statement by many 

 other farmers, but one of them reported that in 

 an experiment made by him on common soil, 

 where diflVrent quantities of seed, from three to 

 seven pecks per acre, were used, the larger seed- 

 ing had done the best. 



From all we could learn about the " Martin 

 Amber," we are justified in recommending it to 

 every farmer for trial. The question as to the 

 proper quantity of seed to the acre seems to us 

 still an open one, though we believe that the 

 "Martin" does require less than other wheats. 



The average price paid to the wool-grower for 

 his wool in 1884, has been 27 cents, against 3S 

 or 37 cents in 1881. This is equal to a falling oft 

 of about 25 per centum. Prices of all articles, 

 necessaries as well as luxuries of life, have de- 

 clined in about the same ratio ; and no reasonable- 

 farmer expects that his products alone could hold 

 their price up to former rates. A pound of wool 

 now, has about the same purcliase value as it had 

 three years ago. Still a reduction of the tariff ott 

 wool without a corresponding reduction of the 

 whole tariff, must be considered a discriminatiou 

 against the farmer, and gross injustice. Legisla- 

 tors should hesitate before touching anv of the 

 very few protected articles produced on the farm, 

 like wool and sugar. On the other hand we 

 want no foolishness about it. The childish de- 

 mand of many of our contemporaries for " a tarifT 

 on wool as near as possible to the prohibitioD 

 point," and their attemjits to make a 11 per cent- 

 tariff reduction, responsible for a 25 per cent, 

 decline in price (they would try to blame the 

 tariff reduction for the low price of wheat in 1884^ 

 or potatoes in 1883, if they could), are conclusive 

 evidence, that they forget the farmer's best inter- 

 est in their desire for popularity, or that they 

 have not entered the intricacies ot the tariff ques- 

 tion very deeply. Justice we demand for the 

 farmer, But no <!'hinese walls. A tariff on wool 

 near the prohibition point, means prohibilioTt. 

 prices on woolen goods, and poor woolen clothing 

 or none for the masses. We cannot see "protec- 

 tion for American labor " in that. 



Many farmers in the valley of Virginia at this 

 writing are selling their wheat crops tit seventy- 

 six cents per bushel. We should have rejoiced 

 had we been forced to admit a mistake of the 

 probable wheat price in one of the former issues 

 of Farm ano Garden. (We had expected 

 seventv-fivc cents. I There are farmers now sel- 

 ling the crops of 1883, for which they had refu-sed 

 to take $1.00, and even .■? l.o.^. Debts arecrcwding 

 upon them, such as phosphate and grocery bills, 

 contracted in anticipation of large receipts from 

 the wheat crop, and they are obliged to sell. 



That the excessive )>roduction and the low price 

 of wheat is a blessing, as frieiKl Atkinson of tlic 

 Farm Journal a.ssert», we greatly doubt, and the 

 farmer, when he counts the amount of money left 

 in his hands after paying his bills and his help ; 

 as well as the country and city merchant, sufl'er- 

 ing under a stagnation of business which is at 

 lea.st partly due to this cause, doubts it also. 



On the other hand it is quite true that the 

 question is one of actual profit rather than of 

 actual price, and it makes not much difference 

 whether wheat sells for ^\.W> (costing 75 cents to 

 produce it), or 75 cents (costing 50 cents to pro- 

 duce it). In either ease the real profit to the 

 producer is 25 cents per bushel. But to reduce 

 the cost of pioduction is easier said than done. 

 When friend Atkinson suggests the use of less 

 seed as the proper remedy, he is blundering again. 

 The remedy like other homeopathic ones, is too 

 thin. ;it is" applicable to soils in a high state of 

 cultivation, and then is insignificant as compared 

 with the general result, but it would be folly to 

 ajiply it on poorer and particularly hurriedly- 

 prepared soils, where such a saving might be of 

 some account. We again, and implicity trust in 

 the good sense of the farmer to find more effective 

 ways of reducing the cost of production, or of re- 

 ducing the latter itself, should it prove an un- 

 profitable one. 



We will not put much confidence in political 

 mea.sures. They cannot regulate the price of 

 wheat, which is determined by the laws of de- 

 mand and supply in the old world, rather than 

 here. Still we cannot suppress our conviction 

 that no means would be as effective and powerful 

 in reducing the cost of production of wheat (and 

 all other bread-stuffs), as a reasonable reductiou 

 of our tariff rates. 



Scheming demagogues have tried hard and per- 

 sistently to veil the true issue of the tariff ques- 

 tion. It was necessary for them to draw the 

 farmers' attention away from the fact that hun- 

 dreds of millions of rlollars, extorted from the 

 sweat of the poor, are accumulating in the 

 trea-sury, as a fund of corrujition and a perpetual 

 temptation to hi.ngry politicians. 



A few dozen celery plants may be nicely kept 

 for use during winter by standing them, after 

 being cleaned, washed, and the ends of roots 

 trimmed, in a tub or barrel containing a few 

 inches of water. Or pack them in a box in web 

 moss, and keep standing upright. 



After repeated trials of .salt as a top-dressing, 

 on both garden and fields, we have not seen posi- 

 tive effects, one way or the other, which wouldl 

 justify me to recommend or disapprove its use. 

 It is sheer nonsense to expect that weeds, or weed" 

 seeds, can be killed by the a))plication of a little 

 salt. Vegetables are tenderer than weeds and. 

 would be destroyed first. 



Speaking of salt, we arc reminded of a comicaE 

 notion of the Farm Juiirinil. Friend A. is con- 

 stantly telling his readers that milk cows should 

 not have salt! Why? Because he does not be- 

 lieve that they need it. Yet, with singular con- 

 sistency he adds " possibly steers may lay on fat 

 faster, "when given salt." Well, what is .sauce 

 for the gander is sauce for the goose. But in 

 order to be sure on this point, and believing that 

 if salt is hurtful to an animal, it is so to man, let 

 the experiment be made with friend A., rather 

 than with dumb brutes. Perhaps he will not 

 like his victuals witliout salt and pepper and' 

 vinegar, but nevermind his depraved appetite; 

 let taste give way to reason. Good sense fells- 

 him that seasoning is not necessary. But in. 

 behalf of the poor cow, with a strong, natural 

 appetite for salt, an appetite that is also the best 

 safeguard against her over-indulgence, if regu- 

 larly jirovided, we apjieal to the farmer to stick 

 to the old habit of feeding salt at least once a. 

 week. Pardon the disgression. 



" Cleanliness is next to Godliness," not less in- 

 the garden than with ourselves. Cleanliness is- 

 conducive to health and comfort. Children, 

 should be washed before they are sent to bed, 

 and the garden needs cleaning before the long' 

 night of winter. Gather up all the weeds and' 

 vines and other rubbish, and burn them, if for no- 

 other reason than for the destruction of insects, 

 and their eggs. A thorough cleaning can be- 

 given bv means of the phut. Bury the past with. 

 six or eight inches of soil, the past with all its' 

 errors and blunders and mishaps, then leave the- 

 garden to the tender mercies of winter. One- 

 more look back •' over the garden wall," ami 

 adieu, my love. Au revoir in 1885. 



Old dead or decaying fruit trees should be re- 

 moved at once from" your fields and orchards, antV 

 burnt up without delay. Many injurious insects 

 will thereby be destroyed. 



It hardly ever pays to " fill in " vacant spacesi 

 in old orchards with young trees. These latter 

 cannot receive the proper attention and cultiva- 

 tion, struggle along for a while under the disad- 

 vantages of sod and shade, and at last succumb- 

 to the attacks of insects, which are always nu- 

 merous in old orchards, and ready to pounce- 

 ui>on evervthing " young and tender." 



Rather select a piece of new ground, prepare it 

 well as you would for corn, and set out a new or- 

 chard. Proper cultivation will then insure success^ 



