94 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[June, 



17 per cent, and Califoruia 15. On the whole, the 

 situation seems to have improved over what it was a 

 month a ago, when it was put down at 80, whereas 

 it is now given at83U. In May, last year, it stood 

 at 100, which under the standard set up by the De- 

 partment means a medium growth, a full stand and 

 a healthy plant. In 1879 and 1880 the average was 

 about 99, while in ISrtl it was only 88. While the 

 crop in May last year was only 100 it went up lo 101 

 by the time the harvest came along. The present 

 average of 83'2, therefore, need not be accepted as 

 the exact exceut of the crop. Under exceptionally 

 favorable weather it may rise considerably higher. 

 At the same time untoward iuBueuces may also 

 serve lo reduce it still lower than where we now find 

 it. 



The foregoing refers to the winter wheat exclu- 

 sively, which, of course, forms the far lai-ger purt of 

 the crop. It is too early to estimate what the area 

 of spring wheat will be, but enough is known that 

 there will be a very material increase in some sec- 

 tions. In Dakota it will amount to as much as SO 

 percent. In Washington Territory it will be about 

 15 per cent, greater. But, after all these increases 

 reported from the spring wheat States are considered, 

 they will not, it is believed, more than make good 

 the losses in the entire wheat averages. In short, as 

 Stat ;d above, the data now at hand indicates that 

 our crop will fall short at least 70,000,000 bushels, 

 and may reach 100,000,000. The deficiency will be 

 exclusively in those States which send their grain to 

 the Atlantic seaboard. The Pacific coast will hold 

 her own, but her wheat area is too small to affect 

 the general average much. 



This serious falling otl' in this important crop will 

 affect our wheat export not a little. There will be 

 only about half as much lo sell abroad as there was 

 last year. This may be modified somewhat by the 

 surplus we have'left over from last year, which is 

 estimated at about 70,000,000 bushels. Still, the 

 disagreeable fact remains that our wheat supply a 

 year hence will be far shorter than it is now. In 

 this locality the prospect is unusually good, as it 

 also is in the neighboring counties of Chester, Berks, 

 Bucks, Lebanon, Montgomery and Lehigh counties. 

 In fact, the weather has favored the crops in this 

 section greatly, and, saving of course the unknown 

 contingencies of the season, the outlook is as good 

 now as it has been at any time in years. Our hay 

 crop never promised better and in these two import- 

 ant items our farmers have every reason to believe 

 they will have an unusually prosperous season. 

 Not, however, until the middle of July comes will 

 the true slate of the cimntry's wheat crop be known. 



Bone Manure for Pastures. 

 An English paper, in commenting upon the sub 

 ject, remarks ihal the Cheshire dairy farmer, by free 

 use of bone manure laid on the grass lands, makes 

 his farm which at one time, before the application of 

 bone manure, fed only twenty head of cows, now 

 leed forty. In Cheshire two-thirds or more, gener- 

 ally three-fourths, of adairy farm are kept in perfect 

 pasture, the remainder in tillage. Its dairy farmers 

 are commonly bound to lay the whole of their ma- 

 nure, not on the arable, but on the grass land, pur- 

 chasing what may be necessary for the arable. The 

 chief improvement besides drainage consists in the 

 application of bone manure. In the milk of each 

 cow in its urine, in ils manure, in^the bones of each 

 calf reared and sold off, a farm parts with as much 

 earthly phosphates of lime as is contained in half a 

 hundred weight of bone dust- Hence the advantage 

 of returning this mineral manure by boning grass 

 lands. The quantity of bones now commonly given 

 in Cheshire to an imperial acre of grass laud is 1,290 

 to 1, .500 weight. This dressing on pasture laud will 

 last seven or eight years, and on mowed land about 

 half that period. 



Every farmer should be able to make repairs on his 

 wagons, gates and buildings. A room, or a portion 

 of a room, should be devoted to keeping tools ; a 

 pin or nail should be inserted for each one to hang 

 on, and the name of each one written or painted 

 under the pin, that it may be promptly returned lo 

 its place and any missing one detected. Keep every 

 tool in its place— do not wait for a more convenient 

 season, but return every one to its pin the moment 

 it is done with. If left out of place a moment it will 

 be likely to remain a week and cause a loss of time 

 in looking for it a hundred times greater than in re 

 placing it promptly. Keeping everything in its place 

 is a habit costing nothing when formed. The tools 

 Should be a hammer, saw, augurs, brace and bits, 

 gimlets, screw-driver, wrench, two planes, chisels, 

 mallet, files and rasp, draw-knife, saw set, trowel, 

 and a box with compartments for different sized 

 nails, screws, nuts and bolts. Comniou farm imple- 

 ments and tools, such as hoes, spades, shovels, forks, 

 rakes and scythes, may be in the same room, on the 

 opposite side, and the same precaution taken lo 

 keep every one in its place. 



Use and Benefit of Plaster. 



It appears from an experiment made by the Stale 

 Agricultural college of Michigan, on their farm with 

 sowing land plaster on grass, that two bushels of 

 plaster produced over two-thirds as much increase 

 as twenty loads of horse manure, worth ten times as 

 much as the plaster cost. From this experiment it 

 must not, however, be inferred that the same results 

 would be forthcoming on all soils from similar appli- 

 cation, for all lands are not equally benefitted by the 

 application of plaster, though, as a rule, pasture 

 fields can be made lo produce luxuriant grasses by 

 its use. So far as we know, where plaster has been 

 tried in Minnesota, on grass lauds and meadows, its 

 effect was surprising. The only instance brought to 

 our attention, however, was the application on sandy 

 land. So says the i^ai'mers' Union, 



Sowing Corn for Fodder. 



There is nothing the farmer can get as much stock 

 food from for the amount of labor expended as he can 

 from a patch of sowed corn for fodder. Unless your 

 ground be rich, give it a good coat of manure and 

 plow it under. Let it lay until the surface is thor- 

 oughly pulverized ; then sow the corn with a drill, 

 about one and a half bushels of shelled corn to the 

 acre if you want it for fodder alone, as by sowing 

 thick the stalks will be smaller, and you will have a 

 larger quantity of blades and tops that the stock will 

 eat up cleaner. By sowing thinner you get larger 

 and heavier stalks, and by sowing a little earlier and 

 letting stand longer you can secure a good supply of 

 nubbing. — South and UV.s(. 



HORTjCL iURE. 



Budding. 



Budding of trees is very simple and much less 

 trouble than grafting, but it can scarcely be de 

 scribed how lo do it sulliciently well to enable one lo 

 perform it successfully. The season for the pur- 

 pose is June and July, when the new buds are fully 

 developed. — Gennaidowu Teieijraph. 



Farm Tools and Implements. 



A certain number of tools, and some skill in their 

 use, will often save the farmer much time in send 

 ng for a mechanic and some expense in paying him. 



Use the Hoe. 



An English gardener says he does not agree with 

 those who say that one good weeding is worth two 

 hoeings. He says : Never weed a crop in which a 

 hoe can be used, not so much for the sake of de- 

 stroying weeds, which must be the case if the hoeing 

 be well done, as for increasing the porosity of the 

 soil, lo allow the air and water to penetrate freely 

 through it. Oftentimes there is more benefit derived 

 by crops from keeping them well hoed than there is 

 from the manure applied. Weeds or no weeds, I 

 keep stirring the soil, well knowing from practice 

 the very beneficial efiects it has. 



Forcing Apple Trees on Off Years, 



Asa S. Curtis, of Stratford, has tried an experiment 

 in apple growing, the result of which will be of in- 

 terest to all those who raise apples for their own use 

 or the market. Having an orchard which produced 

 fruit only on every other year and hearing that the 

 trees could be made to change their bearing season 

 so that every year might me fruitful, he selected a 

 healthy young apple tree eight years ago and for 

 four successive bearing seasons carefully rubbed off 

 every bud as fast as it appeared. For the first three 

 seasons this made no apparent difference, the tree 

 ommilting all blossoms the next season, but putting 

 out its blooms again on the regular year. Last year 

 Mr. Curtis repealed the experiment for the fourth 

 time, and this season the tree appears to have given 

 up its old habit and to have concluded to let ils 

 owner have his own way, for it is in full bloom at 

 last in the " off scisou." If part of the trees of an 

 orchard can thus be made to bear one year and the 

 others the next there need be no "off year" at all 

 for the apple crop. — Hartford Courani. 



Cultivation of Horse Radish. 



Any kind of soil will suit horse radish, provided It 

 is cool and moist. A low, moist, sandy soil, well 

 enriched with low-yard manure, is the best. In 

 place of barnyard manure, Peruvian guano, or a 

 mixture of finely ground raw bone-dust and un- 

 leached ashes may be used with benefit ; .500 lo 800 

 pounds per acre of either the above fertilizers, or 20 

 tons of manure, will be sufficient. Unleached 

 ashes are excellent, but need help ; a strong am- 

 monical fertilizer is needed as well as potash. The 

 best mode of cultivation is to plant root cuttings 

 about one-quarter inch in diameter and 3 to 6 inches 

 long, in rows 3 feel apart, and 16 inches apart in the 

 the row. The cuttings are made from the smaller 

 roots, and as they are made the lops should bo cut 

 square and the bottoms slanting, so that in planting 

 they may not be put bottom upward. They are lo be 

 set three inches below the surface. This crop is not 

 grown from seed ; by plantinj- slips in May the Fall 

 crop may be harvested in December. About twelve 

 thousand roots are grown per acre, and good roots 

 will weigh three-quarters of a pound, giving ten 

 thousand pounds per acre, when the cultivation is 

 the best possible. The roots are dug as late as pos- 

 sil>le, trimmed and put away in pits and covered 

 with soil, just as potatoes or turnips are kept over. 

 — iVfiO York Times. 



FLORAL NOTES. 



If a plant is vigorous, and well furnished with 

 leaves, and grown in a pot suitable to its size, there 

 is less danger of injury from loo much water, than 

 if it is scant of foliage or in a pot much too large for 

 it. In the latter case, if the soil is kept wet, the 

 roots decay and the plants die. 



TuE Aphis, or green fly, is one of the most trouble- 

 some enemies of pot-grown plants. It is most easily 

 destroyed by syringing the plants twice a week with 

 a lea made from tobacco stems, moving them up 

 and down until the insects are thoroughly washed 

 off. This will also destroy other insects. 



The two most important things to be observed in 

 taking care of plants in the house, are lo secure a 

 proper degree of heat and to furnish a sufficient 

 amount of water, and no more. Some plants require 

 more heat than others ; and nearly all plants require 

 more heat when growing vigorously, or flowering, 

 when in a state of rest. 



To induce a vigorous growth all plants should be 

 grown in good rich soil ; composed of decayed sods 

 and well rotted manure, mixed with sufficient sandy 

 road-drift to make it porous, and nearly all should 

 be re-potted as soon as the pot they are growing in 

 is thoroughly filled with roots. In re-polling use 

 pots only one size larger— or about one inch more in 

 diameter — than the plants have been growing in. 



Pansies are quite hardy, and will stand any 

 amount of cold, if protected from the bleak winds. 

 A cold frame is the most suitable place to winter 



