150 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[October, 



cellar in which there is a heater. They bear 

 considei-able heat without sprouting, but it 

 should not get beyond fifty nor below forty de- 

 grees. 



We have also known them to be packed in 

 boxes, each potato being wrapped up in paper, 

 and the boxes placed in cellars where there is 

 no danger of freezing, as this potato is very 

 susceptible of being nipped, and when once 

 touclied they decay rapidly. Yet the tem- 

 perature should not be warmer than is men- 

 tioned above. We have ourselves tried them 

 packed in paper and put in barrels, also with 

 fine shavings and placed in a cellar well ven- 

 tilated, but they would not keep. We have 

 found— residing we may say at the head- 

 quarters of the sweet potato region— that the 

 surest way to obtain good, sound potatoes, 

 was to buy them in the market from Jersey 

 growers just as we need them— say a peck 

 or half a bushel at a time. But this system 

 can be adopted only where the conveniences 

 are at hand. 



Forking-Up the Garden. 

 Gardeners understand the good effect of 

 turning up the soil late in the fall has 

 upon the next year's crops ; but there are 

 many others — those who have small gardens, 

 and in this class are many of our well-to-do 

 farmers— who, by neglecting this work only 

 raise half a crop of vegetables, and these of an 

 inferior quality, and then they wonder why 

 their more-knowing neighbors do so much 

 better. Hence, we cannot too often repeat 

 the advice that if they will use the garden 

 fork, and turn the soil up full fork deep late in 

 November, allowing it to remain in lumps all 

 winter exposed to the frost, it will have much 

 to do in putting the ground in excellent con- 

 dition, and tend greatly to add to next year's 

 crops. This is especially the case where the 

 ground is not so treated at all ; but we would 

 mention that to do this once in two or three 

 years, instead of every year, as some gardeners 

 do, will produce equally good effect. Gardens 

 — and especially old ones— should be limed 

 about once in five years, though but lightly, 

 say at about the rate of thirty bushels per 

 acre, and lightly salted every other year at the 

 rate of from six to eight bushels per acre, 

 applying it evenly to avoid injury. Keep the 

 salt from coming in contact with box edging 

 and all other evergreens, very small trees, &c. 

 Such a course will recuperate your old gardens 

 in a surprising manner. — Ger. Telegraph. 



FARMERS' ORGANIZATION. 

 Organization is one of the salient marks of 

 the civilization of the past two centuries. By 

 it the grandest achievements have been ac- 

 complished. To it we owe the birth of Ameri- 

 can constitutional liberty and free govern- 

 ment. It is by the united effort of labor and 

 capital that onr great railway system have 

 been built, canals dug, ships constructed, and 

 the wild wastes of the unsettled wilderness 

 made to bloom and blossom as the rose. 

 Truly, in organization and co-operation there 

 is strength. The trade-guikls of Europe were 

 efforts of men combined together to improve 

 their social condition and advance the standard 

 of their workmanship. The trades-unions of 

 this country are similar illustrations, and have 

 left their impress upon the social life of their 

 members, advanced their wages, and created 



a spirit of emulation that results in better 

 and improved workmanship. 



But these are facts apparent to every reader 

 of Southern Industries. Now, if such great 

 results arise from organization, why is it that 

 the farmers are not more thoroughly organ- 

 ized into societies for their mutual improve- 

 ment and protection, for the dissemination of 

 practical agricultural knowledge, and for the 

 discussion of questions that enter into the 

 practice of every-day life ? Th»re is no pro- 

 fession, business, or calling, where so much is 

 neglected of vital importance, where more is 

 to learn and be learned. Seventy-two per 

 cent, of the people of this country are farmers. 

 Tlie interests depending upon farming are 

 more important than upon any other calling 

 that make up the aggregate of our national 

 life. Farmers are the great wealth-producers, 

 in fact, the bed-rock, the foundation and 

 source of all wealth, all power, all business, 

 all i)rofessions, and every calling in life. The 

 products of their labor feed and clothe the 

 world ; and yet they are nowhere recognized 

 except as the hewers of wood and drawers of 

 water for the unprincipled political scheming 

 demagogue who rides into power by their 

 votes, and the mighty corporations that feed, 

 and fatten and gloat over the ill-gotten gain 

 wrung from their hard earnings. The owners 

 of the vast machinery propelled by the mighty 

 water-power at Lowell are not more defiant 

 in their mastery of that power than the poli- 

 tician, the ring-master, and the monopolist, 

 who reap their rich harvests of wealth from 

 the submissive indifference of the farmers, 

 who unconsciously do their bidding. And 

 who but the farmer is to blame for all this V 

 He is the power. He holds the majority in 

 every rural district, and with his co-laborers, 

 the artizan and the mechanic, in every other 

 legislative and Congressional district in the 

 United States. No legislator. State or national, 

 can be elected without his vote, and yet our 

 legislative halls are seldom graced with liis 

 presence, or by a representative true to his in- 

 terests. We say this in no spirit to array the 

 farmer, as a class, against any other class, but 

 to remind him of his power, and for him to 

 act in obedience to that God-given riglit of 

 striking a blow for self -preservation.-Sowtftern 

 Industries. 



WHAT ONE COW WILL DO. 



A garden of one acre may be kept richly 

 manured by the droppings of one cow. For 

 five years past I have reserved one pet Jersey 

 cow for the use of the house and have kept 

 her up in a stable near the house and fed her 

 upon the lawn-mowings and a small plot of 

 grass, with tlie vegetable waste of the house 

 and garden. The produce of the acre is 

 more than sufficient to feed the cow the year 

 round with the help of four quarts daily of 

 feed. This amounts to about one ton per 

 year, costing about $25. I estimate the milk, 

 cream, and butter of a good cow to be worth 

 to a family f 100 a year.' That is, it would 

 cost tliat sum to purchase the amount of these 

 used in a family. There will be a surplus of 

 milk or butter to be sold equivalent to a fur- 

 ther sum of $50. Tlie manure for one acre of 

 garden will pay well for the labor of attend- 

 ing to the cow, and in 10 years will pay for 

 the cow besides. So that a good cow, when 



well cared for, will produce in 10 years the 

 actual sum of $1,000, besides paying for her- 

 self, her feed, and attention. Then there 

 will be eight calves besides, and skimmed 

 milk and buttermilk to partly feed a pig or a 

 flock of poultry. And then the comfort and 

 pleasure of it ! 



I am already feeding down a small piece of 

 orchard grass under some apple trees the 

 third time, by tethering the cow upon it. 

 Some of the grass I have just cut the second 

 time and some will give a third cutting. Fifty 

 rows of sweet corn are now beginning to 

 yield boiling ears and the stalks and husks go 

 to the cow. There are pea-vines, bean-vines, 

 beet-tops, small potatoes, and other wastes to 

 help feed the cow luxuriously, and in this way 

 the family cow may be kept in abundance 

 throughout the year, while her manure will 

 keep the whole acre growing richer every year ■ 

 and will provide a liberal quantity for the j 

 flower-beds and the shrubs and dwarf pears 

 on the lawn. A very large quantity of the 

 best manure is made by throwing the weeds 

 with all the soil attached to them, the leaves 

 that are raked up, and the wood ashes from 

 the house, toarether with as much soil as may 

 be needed into a shallow pit in the cowyard 

 and leading the drainage from the manure 

 gutter into it. If a farm were only managed 

 as one manages the garden, every acre might 

 easily pay a hundred dollars ; but the labor is 

 not to be had, and one pair of hands cannot 

 do it for more than five or six acres. But tlie 

 time will come when it must be done ; when 

 the land becomes fully occupied and this 

 great country lias its .500,000,000 of inhabi- 

 tants, a number which it can sustain with the 

 greatest ease with a thorough system of culti- 

 vation. — Cor. N. Y. Times. 



OSTRICH FARMING IN CALIFORNIA 



I have thought that an account of a visit to 

 an ostrich farm near Anaheim, California, 

 might interest some of your readers and give 

 some information that would be useful. My 

 attention was called to the profits as well as 

 practicability of ostrich breeding in this country 

 some years ago by a young gentleman fresh 

 from college, who has since taken orders in 

 the Episcopal Church, and who prepared for 

 me a statement of the case as it then stood, 

 showing conclusively enough to warrant the 

 experiment that a new industry of importance 

 might easily be built up in various parts of 

 the United States. Having therefore recom- 

 mended the business and tried without avail 

 to have the General Government do something 

 to promote ostrich raising, it may be under- 

 stood that I felt interest enough in the ostrich 

 to go out of my way to visit him in his new 

 home near Anaheim, California. 



Leaving Los Angelos on the 10 A.M. train, 

 I arrived at Anaheim at 11:30, having passed 

 through a flat, well-cultivated country largely 

 planted to citrus fruits and vines. Noticeable 

 among the improvements is the very large new 

 vineyard of Mr. Nedeau, who has three thou- 

 sand acres newly planted to vines mostly, aud 

 who has shown his faith in the old Mission 

 variety by putting out most of his cuttings of 

 this kind. Anaheim is one of the oldest 

 American agricultural colonies in Southern 

 California, and was founded in the year 1854 

 by a colony of naturalized Germans from San 



