6o 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



enterprise. Every sixty days they order their regular 

 supply of goods in original packages from their 

 wholesale houses in the city, and report savings rang- 

 ing from 20 to 35 pei ce: t. Now the grange is establish- 

 ing a cooperative plant for handling butter and eggs. 

 They will put in modern creamery fixtures with store 

 room for the egg business. Within three miles of the 

 point selected they can secure the milk of 1,000 cows, 

 and it is likely that there are about 20,000 chickens in 

 the same territory. Every morning when the milk 

 wagon starts for the creamery it will take yesterday's 

 eggs along. All the large white eggs will b$ put in 

 cases by themselves, conspicuously marked with the 

 company's fancy brand. After dinner the wagon will 

 take the butter and eggs down to Petaluma, to be 

 shipped on the boat so as to reach San Francisco in 

 time for next morning's market. As the dealer can 

 warrant that every one of those eggs was laid day 

 before yesterday, they will command an extra fancy 

 price. When the wagon returns it will bring mail for 

 all patrons, fresh meat from the butcher, small orders 

 from the town and bones and scraps from the slaugh- 

 ter house. Next morning when the churn starts, these 

 scraps and bones will be run through the bone mill 

 and a vat of the first skimmed milk that comes from 

 the separator will be run into curds, so that the milk 

 wagons can take home feed for the little chicks as 

 well as the older birds. Instead of carrying home 

 milk for pigs and calves they will wash and scald the 

 cans at the creamery and bring the pigs and calves 

 there to be raised. The skimmilk calf of the olden 

 time used to get a late breakfast of sweet milk and 

 an early supper of morning's milk that had now 

 turned sour. He grew up slab-sided and spindle- 

 shanked, looking like a pumpkin seed on four pins. 

 Here they will have a specialist to raise the young 

 stock, who will give the little ones at least three feeds 

 a day of warm sweet milk and the larger ones a little 

 grain to brace them up. 



Keeping Back the Fruit Buds. F. C. Barker, 

 of New Mexico, denies the assertion that running 

 cold water around the roots of t je fruit trees in early 

 spring has a tendency to keep the buds back late 

 enough to escape all danger of frosts. Experience 

 has shown that the dormant buds throughout winter 

 contain enough vitality at all times to blossom, and 

 hence no amount of mulching or irrigation in winter 

 -will hold them back an hour. Indeed, so little is it 

 believed that irrigation has any effect in keeping 

 back the buds that some orchardists actually abstain 

 from giving water to their trees, believing that the 

 irrigation will hasten the opening of the buds. We 

 believe both theories to be wrong. Trees should be 

 irrigated in the early spring if they require it, and the 

 buds will come out when the warm weather arrives 

 anyhow. Neither does mulching retard the blossom- 

 ing period in trees as was formerly supposed. It 

 could have this effect only where the tree was entirely 

 covered. In other words, placing a protection merely 

 on the surface of the ground does not control or per- 

 ceptibly influence the top of the tree with respect to 

 the development of fruit buds and bloom. This has 

 been abundantly demonstrated. One objection to 

 the practice of mulching is that under a system of 

 surface irrigation it tends to encourage shallow 

 rooting. 



An Alleged New Forage Plant. By the Tu- 



lare, California, Register we learn of a plant, the 

 "Australian salt bush'' that beats the record for claims. 



We shall be glad to hear what Prof. Hilgard has to 

 say of the new claimant for agricultural favor. We 

 quote: "Mr. Forror, foreman of the culture station, 

 has just sent to Berkeley for the purpose of analysis, 

 a single plant of the Australian salt bush that was 

 three feet across and weighed four pounds. This was 

 a single plant from a single root and would make a 

 good dinner for a sheep. We have tens of thousands 

 of acres of land in this country that is not now worth 

 paying taxes on that could be rendered valuable for 

 pasturage at little cost if owners had enterprise 

 enough to get a few handfuls of the seed and scatter 

 it in dusty places. It does not want to be plowed in 

 or covered up much, for if it is, the seed is apt to rot. 

 All it requires is to get into the dust when it will take 

 root and prosper where nothing else will. By putting 

 a paper under a plant and shaking it vigorously the 

 seed will be deposited on the paper and enough for a 

 starter can be obtained in a few moments." 



Dried Cream. I have been bothered more or 

 less with dried cream, or as some term it, windcream, 

 in cold weather. I have adopted the plan of cover- 

 ing my milk, and I find clean newspapers better than 

 dishes. I sealed my milk to prevent its getting bitter, 

 then set in pans or buckets; buckets are the handiest 

 for coveiing. W hen I use pans I lay a piece of lath, 

 or a thin, narrow strip of siding across the pans to 

 keep the paper out of the milk. I let my milk stand 

 after setting until there is no steam arising there- 

 from, then cover. The paper lies loosely on the pans, 

 and admits air enough for the milk, while it shuts out 

 the hot air and wind. I find that I get the cream up 

 quicker and more of it in cold weather by adding a 

 tablespoonful of sour milk to two quarts of warm, 

 scalded milk. Good, sour milk that is not bitter is 

 better than buttermilk for souring new milk. I keep 

 my cream from getting too sour by adding a little cold, 

 scalded milk twice a day and then stir thoroughly.- - 

 A.F.D. in N. Y. Tribune. 



Raising Pork on Alfalfa. The writer has 

 talked and written much on alfalfa pork production for 

 the arid states, and heartily endorses the stand taken 

 by Capt. J. P. Casey in the Southwestern Farm and 

 Orchard. The captain has made it pay handsomely, 

 as it may be made to pay in many of the arid states, 

 not one of which yet grows enough pork to supply a 

 tenth of the home demand. It is easy to fail by trying 

 to succeed with scrub stock. Capt. Casey says: 



" After I got pure bred Berkshires, I made double 

 the money I did out of scrubs. I have two five-acre 

 fields of alfalfa, so that I can pasture my hogs in one 

 while the other rested and was being irrigated. One 

 year I raised 385 head on ten acres of alfalfa pasture 

 and, at fattening time, after I had fed them seventeen 

 days on shorts and alfalfa hay they weighed from 150 

 to 300 pounds, dressed weight. Many of these got to 

 150 pounds in seven months. Shorts and alfalfa hay 

 are, I think, quite equal to corn for giving the finish- 

 ing touch to pork. The hay ought to DC the first cut- 

 ting and carefully cured so as to preserve all the 

 leaves. The shorts cost me $1 per hundred pounds, 

 and I mixed 100 pounds with 500 pounds of alfalfa 

 hay, which should be chopped. Of course the mixture 

 is fed wet and well mixed up. You must be careful 

 and have a good high border between your two fields 

 for if the water comes into the patch where the hogs 

 are feeding they cannot resist the temptation to root 

 into the cool moist earth. At first I had a difficulty 



