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THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Careful Selection Necessary. Now that we 

 have free foreign wool, it behooves American flock 

 masters to look sharply after their sheep. Only the 

 best breeds and the best specimens of each breed 

 should be kept on the farm, due account being 

 taken of the use to be made of the animal. While 

 free wool may make sheep kept for wool less profit- 

 able, it is not impossible that there will still be 

 good money in the mutton breeds. In any event, 

 and for whatever purpose sheep are kept, they should 

 be well cared for. If they are worth keeping at all 

 they are worth the care needed to make them profit- 

 able. 



Disadvantages of a Square Acre. A square 

 acre plowed with a fifteen-inch furrow requires eighty- 

 four rounds and 386 turns, while the same area in the 

 form of a parallelogram, two by eighty rods, requires 

 only thirteen rounds and fifty-two turns. In the one 

 form it will take twice the time to plow that it does 

 in the other, to say nothing of the serious tramping 

 which the square piece will be subject to. Exchange. 



Photographs Wanted. Photographs of nota- 

 ble farm animals, fruits, vegetables, farm buildings, 

 persons and rural scenes are desired for reproduc- 

 tion in the pages of THE IRRIGATION AGE. Our aim 

 is to illustrate the magazine as fully as possible, and 

 there are probably no pictures of such living interest 

 as those of everyday scenes. 



The State Horticultural Society of Mississippi has 

 agreed upon a scale for hired labor this season as fol- 

 lows: Male hands for orchard and garden work, $10 

 a month, or fifty cents a day; women to be paid forty 

 cents a days; strawberry pickers one and one-half 

 cents a quart; all fruits and vegetables to be gathered 

 by the box or bushel, and hands to be paid accordingly ; 

 skillful hands are to be paid $11 a month. The 

 committee reported " that owing to the low prices 

 of fruit and garden truck the fruit growers were 

 forced to this action." Do the laborers of the West 

 care to compete with these prices?' 



The day has passed into oblivion when a farmer 

 is measured by the superior feats that he can per- 

 form, such as how many acres of grass have fallen 

 before his scythe to-day, the field of corn that has 

 received his attention, the tons of hay yielding to his 

 giant-like strength. This is a day of brains. The 

 question is, "What is the strength of his brain, 

 rather than the capacity of his muscle?'' Committee 

 on Education, Maine State Grange. 



Turkey gobblers and the old speckled hen don't 

 care a snap for free trade or high tariff, but manage 

 to scratch around, flap their wings and make a living 

 whether there is a dollar of gold in the treasury or 

 not. Many a flock of poultry has clothed the farmer's 

 family and paid his taxes. 



At $4 per barrel, the cost of flour in a pound of bread 

 is \% cents. Add half a cent for the shortening and 

 salt. These, with the cost of labor, rent, interest on 

 investment, and expense of selling ought to be cov- 

 ered by four cents tor the one-pound loaf. 



When the tree bears a large load of fruit and the 

 wood growth is small, do not prune them that year, 

 but give them time to get more wood. 



Farmers' Institutes and neighborhood libraries' 

 which are being organized and established in many 

 parts of the arid region, are not only evidences of ex- 

 ceptional intelligence in the respective communities, 

 but they are most active factors in creating financial 

 prosperity. They cost but little. Their value is in- 

 calculable. 



Dairying to be successful must be conducted on 

 business principles. Good cows, good feed, intelli- 

 gent management, are the essentials. 



Chaff is not wasted in the poultry yard. .Use 

 liberally, change frequently. 



Always save the refuse, when cleaning the hay loft, 

 for the poultry yard. Every seed is utilized; weed 

 seeds are destroyed. 



If your products, whatever they are, have a good 

 reputation, a sale is easily effected, regardless of the 

 general maket condition. Nothing is more valuable 

 to the farmer, considered as to profit making. 



Liberal feeding of boiled oats and good sound 

 wheat will stimulate egg production in the winter, 

 and its effect will be noticeable upon scrub stock as 

 well as thoroughbred. 



Every farmer should know the exact size of his 

 fields and their acreage, so that he may properly 

 apportion seed or manure. If he cannot afford a tape 

 line, there are even cheaper substitutes, but he can 

 not afford guess work in place of accurate calcu- 

 lations. 



Soak corn for your fattening hogs. Nothing pays 

 better. It is ready for digestion and all the constitu- 

 ents will be more fully assimilated. 



Cabbage worms may be destroyed easilyby sprink- 

 ling the plants with a solution of saltpetre, a table- 

 spoonful dissolved in say ten quarts of tepid water. 

 If the worms reappear sprinkle a second time. 



An old English gardener says that a circle of beans 

 planted about melon or cucumber hills will effectu- 

 ally keep away the striped bugs, which often prove 

 so persistent a pest. 



The acreage to be planted in fruit the coming sea- 

 son in Larimer County, Colo., far exceeds that of 

 any previous year. 



An earnest effort is being made to secure the pay- 

 ment of bounty by the state of $2.00 per ton on sugar 

 beets, equal to one cent a pound on the sugar 

 product. 



F. M. Honey, of Ontario, Cal., after five years' ex- 

 perience, has decided to abandon fig growing, and 

 will root out all his figs and plant orange trees. The 

 trouble seems to be in proper ripening and curing. 

 The trees grow finely, but there is no profit in them. 



At the last cultivation of corn next summer, 

 sprinkle a little rye through the field and see how 

 it will help the lambs get ready for winter. Dakota 

 Farmer. 



