178 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[December, 



mate the cause of the small attendance at the 

 meeting, but this ought not to constitute a 

 valid cause. As well might those who are 

 members of a religious Society, absent them- 

 selves from church-meetings, because they 

 can read their bibles, their sermons, their 

 prayers, and sing their sacred songs, at home. 

 Those who are assigned a duty, and who are 

 in the eflbrt to perform it, are encouraged 

 and upheld in that effort by the sympathizing 

 sphere of their auditors for no man can feel 

 comfortable or encouraged in delivering an 

 essay, or addressing a discourse to empty 

 benches. Still, those who entertain convic- 

 tions that " it is good to be there," ought not 

 to abate their energies, because others have 

 no sympathy, and feel no interest in what 

 they are doing. The watchword ought to still 



be "Go on, go on." 



^ 



EXCERPTS. 



Steam ploughs are being introduced into 

 Dakota, and with great success. 



It takes 250 bushels of potatoes to make a 

 ton of starch. 



Since 1860 the number of known Ameri- 

 can species of mammals, fossil and recent, has 

 increased from 250 to nearly two thousand. 



Planting fruit trees, without giving the 

 trees one-half the attention required to make 

 them profitable, is foolish and wasteful. — 

 Cincinnati Commercial- Gazette. 



Each year's experience only deepens the 

 conviction that the autumn application of 

 barnyard manure to the surface, either after 

 the land is plowed, or on meadow or clover 

 fields that are to be plowed very early for the 

 planting of corn, is the most profitable method. 

 The best result seems to follow the application 

 of manure where it is done some time pre- 

 voius to plowing. In this case the soluble 

 parts are retained near the surface, where 

 they can be readily appropriated as food by 

 the clover and grass roots. — Farm and Fire- 

 side. 



This is the season when you should feea 

 root and veyeta.ble food in conjunction with 

 grain to your fowl stock, to take the place of 

 grass and other green stuft that they were ac- 

 customed to in niild weather. If poulterers 

 would believe how valuable and succulent po- 

 tatoes, cabbage, turnips and carrots are, when 

 cooked and mixed with meal and given to the 

 birds, it is certain they would make ample 

 provision for them in the coming of winter. 



Mr. Mason Brooks, a farmer near Whites- 

 boro, Texas, made ,3322 gallons of sorghum 

 syrup this year, which he sold at forty cents 

 per gallon. 



A FARMER in Suwannee county, Fla., has 

 gathered two crops of peaches from his trees 

 this season. 



There have been but four seasons in thirty- 

 three years when the yield of corn in Ohio 

 was as light as it was this year. The average 

 per acre is placed at 2s. 2 bushels. 



A HOTEL proprietor and veterinary surgeon 

 were lately fired in Wales for docking a horse's 

 tail. The practice was pronounced botli cruel 

 and needless by two professors of anatomy. 

 Good ! 



Tennessee farmers will sow clover seed 

 largely next year. 



Heavy rains and high tides have submerged 

 the rice crop on Cape Fear River to the ex- 

 tent of 20,000 bushels. 



Three thousand turkeys were shipped in 

 early November from Bristol, Tenn., to Sa- 

 vannah, Ga., in one car. 



The cranberry crop of Cape Cod is more 

 highly colored than usual this year and of 

 good quality. 



The farmers of South Carolina sold last 

 year $200,000 worth of grain— corn, oats and 

 wheat. And this was the first year that any 

 considerable number of them had a surplus of 

 grain. 



Peanuts yield 1,000 pounds to the acre in 

 Southern California, and have proved an ex- 

 cellent food for fattening hogs, giving to hams 

 and bacon "an equisitely delicate flavor." 



In a gum-sealed jug, in an Aztec ruin in 

 Ariz»)na, was found some corn by Mr. Wm. 

 Wallbridge. The corn was planted, and in 

 six weeks the grower was eating roasting-ears 

 of a variety which only prehistoric races had 

 hitherto cultivated. The stalk grows but 

 three feet high, and the corn is small, deep 

 red and flinty. Two crops will mature in one 

 summer. All this on the authority of the 

 Arizona Gazette. 



Six hundred million dollars' worth of poul- 

 try and eggs are produced annually in the 

 United States, with quality, consumption and 

 price increasing. 



Mrs. Hicks has a hen turkey which fed her 

 thirty young ones on grasshoppers so long as 

 the crop held out and then took to the woods, 

 flew up into the oak trees and shook down 

 acorns for the brood. Mrs. Hicks and her 

 turkey live in Duchess county, N. Y. 



A FINE botanical garden is to be estab- 

 lished at Palatka, Fla. 



Texas is said to produce about one-half the 

 cattle raised in the United States. 



H. C. Wheeler has the largest farm in 

 Iowa, at Odebolt. 



Henry F. Curry, of Manatee, Fla., has 

 planted 27,000 pineapple slips this year. 



.Some English gardeners cut unripe toma- 

 toes and ripen them quickly by placing them 

 on hot water pipes. 



Seventy-five car loads a day of beef cat- 

 tle have been shipped from the Yellowstone 

 Valley in the past six weeks. 



Oregon and Washington have sent into 

 Montana, Dakota and Wyoming fully 20,000 

 head of cattle, and into the same region 

 about 20,000 young thoroughbred and high- 

 grade bulls were sent from different Eastern 

 and Middle States. 



Colonel Taggart's Jersey cow, " Han- 

 nah 2d," was brought to bed on the 13th in- 

 stant with a heifer calf. (Her last was 

 dropped February 15, and lacks two days of 

 being nine months old. The period of gesta- 

 tion was from March 18, only 240 days.) Mr. 

 Packer's imported bull, "Fletcher," is the 

 sire of this precocious bovine. 



The wool clip of the United States for the 

 current year is said to exceed that of 1SS2 by 

 about 20,000,000 pounds, aggregating about 

 320,000,000 pounds. 



In the neighborhood of Lyons, France, 

 every cow on calving receives four to five 



quarts of wine and one pound of toasted 

 bread, and this ration is frequently repeated 

 two or three times in twenty-four hours. 

 Professor Grognier lays down that a cow 

 under such circumstances can take fifteen 

 quarts of wine a day without any injurious 

 effects. 



Pork packers complain that it is hard to 

 secure lean hogs, and the swine now seeking 

 market are too round and heavy to put into 

 the foreign style of meats now most in de- 

 mand. 



In weaning calves, in France, hay tea en- 

 ters largely as a substitute for milk, then 

 linseed cake gruel ; in Russia beer is largely 

 mixed with the milk, which explains the 

 enormous size of the calves ; two pounds of 

 hay are steeped in nine quarts of warm water, 

 and five quarts of the tea are estimated as 

 equal to one quart of milk. 



German carp, hatched two years ago in 

 Georgia, now weigh four pounds. 



Many Delaware tomato growers realized 

 over $90 an acre this year. 



Wb had a new birch floor laid in the 

 kitchen this Spring, and we can't say enough 

 in praise. The good man gave it a coat of oil 

 when it was laid and put it on boiling hot, 

 another this fall ; and it is so easy to keep 

 looking clean and nice. The oil brings out 

 the grain of the wood so beautifully. Wish 

 we had one like it in all the chambers. — Cor- 

 respondence of New Fngland Homestead. 



Sixteen cents a pound for butter is about 

 the same as one and a quarter cents per quart 

 for milk. Better make poultry or pork of it 

 at that price. — Farm Journal. 



In an establishment at Oakland, California, 

 the entrails of sheep are used for making very 

 serviceable belting for machinery. First the 

 entrails are cleaned and soaked for a few 

 days in brine. The prepared material is 

 then wound on bobbins, when it is ready for 

 working up either into ropes, or flat belts. A 

 threequarter-inch rope of this material is 

 capable of bearing a strain of seven tons. The 

 material, furthermore, is durable — more than 

 twice as durable as hemp. 



Every piece of horse radish grows; if we 

 take a piece of root about an inch in length, 

 about the size of a large bean, and put it an 

 inch below the surface of the prepared 

 ground, a short piece will come to the surface 

 and form a crown, and another portion will 

 descend and probably fork to form a root; but 

 instead of this, if we make a hole a foot or so 

 deep in the ground with a dibble and let the 

 little pieces of root drop to the bottom, a 

 clean straight sprout will come up to the sur- 

 face, and this will in time make as clean and 

 thrifty a market piece as could be desired. 



When Victoria came to the throue in 1837, 

 the estimate for her personal expenses was 

 based on the charges of the household of Wil- 

 liam the Fourth. For her Majesty's privy 

 purse they set apart iS;300,000 yearly ; for 

 household salaries, $050,300 ; for ordinary 

 household expenses, $802,500 ; for royal 

 bounty, etc , $0(3,000 ; and for various other 

 small items, $40,200. The total is about $1,- 

 925,000. Besides this she has $215,000. being 

 the revenue ot the Duchy of Lancaster. Thus 

 the sum which her Majesty receives yearly, 



