California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



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TIMELY SUGGESTIONS. 



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,5|'EGETABLE gardens, on farms 

 Itfr where laud is plenty and persons 

 m cannot devote as much time to 

 £ them as the professional gardener 

 ^ does, can be economically carried 

 ou oy allowing more space between the 

 rows, so as to admit the cultivator to do 

 a good deal of the work of weeding. 

 Weeds are the greatest enemies to be 

 contended with, and it will not do to al- 

 low them to grow amongst the plants, 

 rob them of nutriment and crowd them 

 for room in which to freely gi-ow. The 

 farmer who starts a vegetable garden wilf 

 be likely to get discouraged if he doesn't 

 like to puU weeds from among the ten- 

 der young plants, and to use the hoe 

 vigorously and often. It will not do to 

 give the weeds the least advantage. They 

 must be gotten rid of. A good way to 

 Ijlant carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, 

 etc., is to plant in double rows; that is, 

 two rows eight inches apart, and three 

 feet between the double rows, so 

 that a horse cultivator can run in the 

 wide spaces, and the hoe will be used to 

 clean the weeds about the plants and in 

 the narrow space. In this way the 

 whole garden can be laid out uniformly 

 for almost everything. Cabbages and 

 tomatoes will need the entire space in 

 one row. This late in the season ma- 

 nure for a garden should be put upon 

 the surface after plowing, and dragged 

 down with a harrow finely. When ap- 

 plied in the Fall, which is the best time, 

 it should be spread upon the surface and 

 the seeds in it allowed to germinate be- 

 fore plowing; then by plowing under 

 and cross plowing so as to mix thor- 

 oughly with the soil, not too deeply, it 

 will be in the best position and condi- 

 tion to benefit plant growth. 



In planting seeds, instead of digging 

 a line to put them in, press down the 

 earth with a wheel or rake-head, an inch 

 below the level, drop the seeds and cover 

 lightly with finely pulverized soil, then 

 press this gently upon them. The ob- 

 ject of this is to have each seed firmly 

 bedded in fine soil, which will gather 

 moisture from below and cause the seed 

 to surely sprout. With a firm bed un- 

 der the seed it will break through the 

 covering without cramping and grow- 

 rapidly. Should a shower cause the 

 surface of the soil to form a crust before 

 the seeds break through, it should be 

 carefully removed to allow the tender 

 shoots to spring upwards; otherwise 

 they may become cramped down and die 

 before seeing the light. The chickens 

 should be kept out of the garden until 

 the plants are too large to bo injured by 

 scratching. After that they will do as 

 much good as harm, by destroying in- 

 sects. If the hens do eat some vegeta- 

 bles it will do ihem good. Hens need 

 green feed the year round, and should 

 have it, too, from some source. It will 

 pay to plant onions and beets for the 

 hens. 



Persons who are not used to sowing 

 vegetable seeds are likely to put them in 

 too thick, the seeds are so small. Use 

 judgment in this matter, and where too 

 thick, thin out the plants while young, 

 and transjilant wliere there are places 

 needing more. 



Chufah.— Chufas or earth almonds are 

 " grass nut but not a nut grass. The nut 

 grows to the size of a small gouber, and 



I Ihave frequently grown a quart from a 

 single nut. On hmd that vyill make 



, twenty bushels of corn, one hundred 



bushels of chufas can be raised easily, 

 and one bushel of chufas is worth two 

 of corn, as I will demonstrate. The 

 chufas delight in a light, sandy soil, but 

 will grow in any soil. They may be 

 planted any time from December to April, 

 as they never rot in the ground or are 

 injured by cold or frost. I plow the land 

 smooth and lay open shallow furrows 

 two feet apart, and in this furrow drop 

 single seeds twelve inches ajwrt, and 

 cover with a board. The seed will vege- 

 tate the first warm weather, and soon 

 show a green line along the row. The 

 green spires will eventually meet across 

 the rows, each spire having a nut at the 

 bottom in the givjund. The nuts do not 

 grow more than two inches in the ground, 

 and the hogs fatten ou them in Winter, 

 when all other crops are in the jut or 

 barn. This is a great advantage over all 

 other crops — no digging or storing. 

 Poultry are very fond of them and soon 

 learn to scratch for them, and, as they 

 grow so near the surface, find no difli- 

 culty in getting them. It is said the pe- 

 culiar flavor of the canvas-back duck of 

 the Chesapeake is derived from the wild 

 celery they feed upon, but epicures can 

 have no conception of delicious game or 

 poultry unless they have eaten chickens 

 fattened on chufas. I have parched and 

 ground them, and find them superior to 

 chocolate as a breakfast drink. When 

 we take into consideration all its good 

 qualities — its fattening properties, its 

 easy culture, its hardiness, and the fact 

 that hogs will dig them as they want 

 them, without wasting them — it is the 

 most valuable seed the Patent Office has 

 ever sent out, and is destined to prove a 

 great boon to the South. — Chas. A. Pea- 

 b<xly in {i<nUhe)-n PlanUxiion. 



Salt fob Cabbage. — A New Jersey 

 gardener considers salt necessary to the 

 development of cabbage, especially in 

 jjlaces far from the coa»t. He finds them 

 more crisp, of better flavor and to keep 

 better when salt is used than without. 

 He used it as follows: A few days after 

 setting out the plants, and when they are 

 damj], either after a rain or when the 

 dew is on, I take a small dish of tine 

 salt, and walking among the rows, sprin- 

 kle a little jnnch of salt on the centre of 

 each plant. When the leaves begin to 

 grow I repeat the salting, and when the 

 centre of the leaves begin to form the 

 head I apply salt again, scattering it over 

 the leaves. After this I look them over 

 occasionally and if I find plants that do 

 not head well and ajipear diseased, I 

 sprinkle the salt over freely. This will 

 save all such plants. A quart of salt is 

 sufficient for five hundred plants in a 

 season, although more can bo used with 

 safety. — Ex. 



GitowiNo Horseradish. — Around the 

 city of New York gardeners grow it as a 

 second crop. The ground is plentifully 

 manured and marked off into rows one 

 foot apart. Every alternate row is plant- 

 ed with early cabbages, and after the 

 plants are set out the horseradish sets 

 are planted in the intermediate rows at 

 a distance of eighteen inches aiiart. If 

 the horseradish starts too soon it is cut 

 off in hoeing the cabbages, which does 

 not injure the horseradish roots in the 

 least. In July the cabbages are har- 

 vested and sold, and the ground is left 

 entirely to the horseradish. As the far- 

 mer is supposed to produce only one crop 

 from his land each year, ho can manage 

 the eroj) without so much labor. The 

 soil must be deep, so as to aUow the 

 roots to penetrate a foot or more, if pos- 

 sible. The sets which are planted con- 

 sist of the small roots which are taken 

 from the largo ones, and are from four 

 to six inches in length. — Ex. 



Destruction of Forests. 



HE New York Times gives some 

 rather startling facts and figures. 

 The constant and reckless destruC' 

 tion of our forests is fast bringing 

 us to a condition in which there will 

 occasion for real alarm. It is not 

 probable that any "scare" like that which 

 a few years ago went over England, con- 

 cerning the prosjjective exhaustion of 

 her coal supply, will immediately occur 

 in America, touching the loss of our for- 

 ests; but we wish something near enough 

 approaching it might happen to stop a 

 work that is full of evil jiromise. In the 

 whole United States there is left but one 

 really great tract of timber. It lies at 

 the far extreme of our country and con- 

 sists of about one-half of Washington 

 territory Territory and a third of Oregon. 

 California has, perhaps, 5U0,0U0 acres of 

 forests now, of which fully one-half has 

 been cut away within the last two or 

 three years. Here in New Y'ork our 

 wealth of maple, walnut and hickory is 

 substantially gone, and a large part of it 

 has been wantonly destroyed. 



Wisconsin had a magnificent forest 

 growth, but the people are sweeping it 

 away at a rapid rate. One billion feet of 

 timber were cut in a single year. It will 

 not take more than a decade or two at 

 the utmost to fairly exhauste this source 

 of wealth to the State. Michigan and 

 Minnesota are following in the same 

 course, slashing away at their forests as 

 if a tree had no right to lift its head. One 

 of our most intelligent army officers. 

 General Brisbin, who knows the West- 

 ern country thoroughly, and to whose 

 accurate knowledge, of this subject we 

 are indebted for many facts, says that 

 50,000 acres of Wisconsin timber are cut 

 annually to supply tlie Kansas and Ne- 

 braska markets alone. The Saginaw 

 forests are even now practically destroy- 

 ed, and if the Northern Pacific Railway 

 is built, it will open up to the ax the one 

 remaining belt of American timber in 

 Oregon and Washington Territory. 



The railroads have been the great de- 

 stroyers of our forests. They use 100,- 

 000,000 of ties annually — that means the 

 leveling of at least 150,000 acres of trees. 

 The timber they use, also, is not the ref- 

 use or inferior, but among the very best 

 tine young trees, eight to ten inches in 

 diameter. Fences are also enormous 

 consumers of trees. In the East we are 

 learning in this regard economy from ne- 

 cessity; but in the West, in some States, 

 the farmers cut down the forests with 

 sciu-celj' more thought than they harvest 

 their grain. The fences of the United 

 States, people may not generally know, 

 have cost more than the lauds, and are 

 to-day the most valuable property, save 

 railroads and real estate in cities. Illin- 

 ois alone has i3!2,000,000 invested in fen- 

 ces, and they cost annually $175,000 for 

 rejiairs. In Nebraska, where excellent , 

 hertl laws are in force, the necessity for 

 fences , has been so much lessened that 

 the fences of the State cost less in pro- 

 portion to population than in any other 

 in the Union. 



The outrageous waste of timber caused 

 by (lie felling of forests and the burning 

 of the trees to bring the land under culti- 

 vatiim still goes on at a fearful rale. 

 From lyOO to IS70 no less than 1-2,000,- 

 000 acres of forest w-ere tlius w-antonly 

 destroyed. For fuel also vast tracts are 

 leveled of their trees. It took 10,000 

 acres of forest to supplj- Chicago with 

 fuel one year, 1871. Our annual decrease 

 of forest from all those causes is not far 



from 8,000,000 acres. Yet we plant only 

 10,000 acres of new forest a year. 



The necessity for a commission of 

 forestry, and tne need of efficient laws in 

 all the States for the preservation of our 

 forests, need no further argument than 

 these facts. 



Experiments upon Acclimatization. — 

 Dr. Gray, in the Journal of Science for 

 Septctmber, publishes an interesting no- 

 tice of some experiments recently made 

 by the veteran Swiss botanist, DeCau- 

 dolle. It has long been noticed that in 

 Spring vegetation in northern climates 

 suddenly pushes out with a vigor not to 

 be seen in warmer regions. It is a ques- 

 tion of a good deal of practical interest 

 as bearing upon the problem of acclima- 

 tization, whether this was due simply to 

 the immediate influence of climate, or 

 whether the northern plants ftai-e in ihem 

 the power to grow -n-ith such great rap- 

 idity during the early Spring days. Ac- 

 cordingly DeCaudoUe planted two lots of 

 seed of the same kind of plants — the one 

 lot gathered from northern, the other 

 from southern Europe. The result of 

 this experiment was as expected, the 

 plants from the northern regions "show- 

 ing a decided advantage in precocity." 

 To further test the matter, the experi- 

 menter procured branches of Poplar, 

 Blue Beech, Tulip tree and Catalpa from 

 extreme southern Europe, and placed 

 them in water along with branches taken 

 from similar Switzerland. All were 

 treated exactly alike, and yet the south- 

 ern trees were much behind the nothern 

 ones in leafing out. The branches from 

 the northern Pojjlar tree were ticenty- 

 tliree dai/s ahead of those from the south. 

 The Blue Beech and Tulip tree from the 

 north were eighteen days earlier, and 

 the northern Catalpa twenty days earlier 

 than the southern ones. These experi- 

 ments appear to indicate that sUght vari- 

 ations had arisen in these species, and 

 that the same temperature and other 

 conditions do not always produce the 

 same eft'ects, or in other words that the 

 trees themselves possessed a power of 

 more rapid growth in cases of the north- 

 ern siiecimens. 



Value of Trees in Town. — Mr. Grif- 

 fiths, the medical officer of health for 

 Sheffield, in his report upon the sanitary 

 condition of that town during 1874, 

 makes the following remarks in reference 

 to street trees: "In the formation of 

 new streets, and on the eve of the con- 

 temj^lated widening and alteration of old 

 ones, it is to be hoped that an effort may 

 be made to provide for trees whenever 

 prabticable. The pleasing appearance of 

 verdure in Summer, and the agreeable- 

 ness of the shade, are benefits to the in- 

 habitants well w-orth the etfort and the 

 cost. Whoever has visited the boule- 

 vards of continental towns, or even the 

 squares of London, can testify to the ad- 

 vantages of verdure as oftering pleasure 

 to the eye and gratification to the mind. 

 Jlin-eover, from a sanitary point of view, 

 the benefits are of incalculable value. It 

 has been asserted that the aggregate sur- 

 face of the leaves of well-grown elm, 

 lime and sycamore trees, with their six 

 to seven million leaves, equal about 200,- 

 000 square feet or about five acres; and 

 these are almost constantly absorbing and 

 digesting the carbonic acid and various 

 exhalations given oil' by the putrefactiim 

 of animal and vegetable matter, and. as 

 if grati'ful for such supiiort. returns into 

 till- air pure oxygen, which reiuvigorates 

 and renews animal life. Trees thus re- 

 move poison from our midst, and to be 

 without them is an oversight. Trees can 

 be had w-hich will exist, with suitable at- 

 tention, in any jiart of the city." 



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