TIME TO PLANT BEANS. 415 



against blocks which hold it at an angle of about forty-five 

 degrees. This position conducts the hay well into the rack, 

 but if the building has a hay-loft, the hay may be supplied 

 through a perpendicular opening down tlie side of the building. 

 Another door below opens the same way into the feed-boxes, 

 and permits the boxes to be cleaned with greater ease, and 

 conveys the grain more readily into them. Be assured that it 

 pays to feed all domestic animals well. 



D. W. KINGSLEY, 



INDEPENDENCE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY. 



Castor Beans — Broom Corn. 



I have paid considerable attention to the cultivation of 

 castor beans, broom corn, and flax. I find the castor beans the 

 most profitable, because the crop may be gathered by such help 

 upon the farm as is not considered able to do a full day's 

 work at the ordinary farm labor. 



WHEN TO PLANT. 



I plant the castor beans as early in the Spring as the seed 

 can be put in the ground. I prepare the ground in the same 

 way I would for corn, and plant about the same distance each 

 way. More care is necessary to get the rows straight. I plant 

 with a corn planter, but a more uniform stand is obtained by 

 hand, covering about an inch deep some two or three grains in 

 a hill. When the plants are well started — about six inches 

 high — I thin to one stalk in a hill. The cultivation must be 

 thorough enough to keep the ground free from weeds. I have 

 a friend who has made a specialty of raising castor beans and 

 broom corn, and he plants his beans in November. He was led 

 to adopt that plan by seeing the beans that had dropped 

 from the pods come up so finely next season. This volunteer 

 crop is earlier and more vigorous than that planted in the 



