THE DIVERSIFIED FARM. 



33 



effect upon animals descended from the 

 well kept herds and flocks of the country 

 there can be no question as to the fact that 

 all intelligent and honest breeders are oil 

 the royal road to permanent success, not 

 only for themselves but for the live stock 

 industry as a whole. 



Washing Butter., There is consider- 

 able difference of opinion in dairy circles 

 on the subject of washing butter, the 

 camps being divided into the washers and 

 non-washers. Those who advocate the 

 reduction of washing to the minimum 

 claim that much washing injures the 

 flavor. 



Hemp. Dr. W. H. Dunn, who raised 

 300 acres of hemp near Lincoln, Ne- 

 braska, is now working the crop into tow, 

 which he will ship to eastern markets. He 

 announces his intention of raising 1,000 

 acres next year. 



Maple syrup from corn-cobs is the 

 latest. By this discovery the cobs are 

 worth more than the corn. Frank Shafer, 

 of Lacon, 111. , boils clean cobs in water 

 until soft. Then the juice is strained off 

 and dark brown sugar added. This is 

 boiled and it comes out a fine quality of 

 maple syrup. It is also discovered in 

 Iowa, in this instance, that a syrup can be 

 produced from watermelons. The past 

 season a melon grower in that State thus 

 utilized thousands of surplus melons 

 which in other seasons he has allowed to 

 rot on the vines. The melon syrup has 

 an exquisite flavor, has good body and a 

 beautiful color. 



Ginseng is being grown in Illinois. 

 This root is worth almost its weight in 

 gold. The Chinese regard this plant as a 

 cure for almost every disease. They be- 

 lieve that the root possesses intelligence and 

 powers of locomotion which enable it to 

 run away to escape capture. They also 

 believe that it is guarded by the tiger, 

 the leopard, the wolf and the snake, 

 animals appointed by the gods to protect 

 it. 



Australian salt bush has been tested in 

 California and is a great success, growing 

 to perfection on alkali ground where 

 nothing else can grow. It is, like alfalfa, 

 perennial, and everything that eats alfalfa 



will eat it. A pleasant flavor is given by 

 it to both butter and milk. If the Cali- 

 fornia Agricultural College report can be 

 relied upon this new grass or fodder will 

 make vast tracts of worse than useless 

 land the most valuable for dairy pur- 

 poses. 



An Illinois farmer living in Jewell 

 county has discovered that seed corn 

 soaked in coal oil renders the growing 

 corn chinch-bug proof. He plowed up 

 his wheat and planted the ground with 

 corn. The seed of five acres was soaked 

 in coal oil and the other forty was not. 

 The bugs ate up the forty acres and never 

 touched the five acres. It is worth a 

 million if true. 



Speaking of the great crops of North 

 Dakota and the northward movement of 

 the corn belt, B. S. Russell, of that State, 

 advances a theory that is startling in its 

 novelty. He insists that wheat is the 

 pioneer of all cereals. Its office is to go 

 ahead and serve as the civilizer of the 

 soil; that is, to take the wildness, or, as 

 he puts it, "the Indian disposition," out 

 of it. He states as a fact that there were 

 few instances where corn had been success- 

 fully raised until the land had first been 

 cultivated in wheat. 



Twenty- one thousand acres of land in 

 O'Brien county, Iowa, forfeited by the 

 Sioux City & Minneapolis Railroad Com- 

 pany, will be thrown open to settlement 

 Feb. 27. Eight thousand acres will be 

 taken by settlers who were driven from 

 their homes when the government gave 

 the lands to the railroad, but who are 

 given the first chance at the land under a 

 recent law. 



It is alleged by the " Sugar Planters' 

 Journal' ' of New Orleans, that many of the 

 sugar plantations in that State have not 

 realized 125 pounds of sugar per ton of 

 cane, because of the use of antiquated 

 machinery and appliances. There is a 

 general need of replacing this old-time 

 apparatus by the most modern type of 

 sugar machinery, and the Louisiana papers 

 are urging a forward movement on this 

 line. 



Some species of fish and insects do not 

 sleep. Among fish, the salmon, pike, gold 

 fish and some other species are known not 

 to sleep at all, but some kinds of fish in- 



