530 



NEW ENGLAND FAR^SIER. 



Sept. 



the summer and autumn, and sell before the | ing for application to potato vines 

 animals begin to loose tlesh late in the fall. 

 Tlie vast herds of Texan cattle are sometimes 

 nuinajied in a similar way, being purchased 

 when in a low condition and driven on the 

 rich and succulent prairie grass until they 

 have become nearly fat. Fanners who have 

 good grass land should devote at least a por- 

 tion of it to fattening stock; good two or 

 three year old heifers and steers kept on a 

 rich pasture fi)r si.x months would })robably 

 pay better than iiiferior tillage. The money 

 wuuld all come together, and the cost of trans- 

 portation, compared with that of the cereals, 

 would be trilling. Every farmer should fatten 

 all his young stock that are not required for 

 the dairy or the yoke. Selling stock of any 

 kind before they are properly made up for the 

 market is very bad management, and a great 

 deal of money is lost by farmers every year 

 in this wav. — Western liurnJ. 



AVhy Cattle need Salt. — A correspon- 

 dent wishes the reason -why cattle need salt. 

 It is because phosphate of soda must be fur- 

 nished to the blood, whereas it is phosphate of 

 potash that exists in grains and grasses grown 

 on sods deficient, as most soils are, in saline 

 or sodic compound. When salt is taken into 

 the animal system it is partially decomposed. 

 Some of its chlorine unites with the potassium 

 of the potash while the liberated sodium is ox- 

 vdized to form soda, and this combines with 

 the phosphoric acid from the potash phosphate 

 to form phosphate of soda. Soda also exists 

 in milk. It is this which gives the fluid its 

 slightly alkaline taste when first drawn. If 

 this be absent, as when cattle are not supplied 

 in some way with salt, the milk is unwhole- 

 some. Cattle are apt to prefer grass grown 

 on lands top-dressed with two or three hun- 

 dred weight of salt to the acre, for the reason 

 that the salt renders the grass sweeter, more 

 tcniler and more snccuh-nt. The weight of 

 grass grown on salted land is, however, likely 

 to be diminished in ])roportion, as rankne^s of 

 growth is prevented. — J. A. W hUiiey, in liu- 

 ral Xtw Yorker. 



AGKICULTURAL ITEMS. 



— The effete aristocracy of Old England can yet 

 read a lesson to the matrons of New England. 

 The fir."»t twenty-four names in the Peerage show 

 families of 272 children, or more than eleven to 

 each bloated aristocrat. 



— An Illinois paper recently advertised: — 

 "Wanted, a good rain ; one that understands the 

 business thoroughly." We are ready to give the 

 one that worked all day for us on the 18th of June, 

 a tirst rate recommendation for the situation. 



—The St. Louis Jlurnl World gives an account of 

 the death of a son of Mr. Schoficld, of Fall Creek, 

 nd., by inhaling I'aiis green which he was prepar- 



He died in a 



few hours after inhaling the poison. 



— The annual cash income of the Cornell Uni- 

 versity is ^12.5,000. Six new Professors are to be 

 adiled. The Professorship of Agriculture is filled 

 by C. H. McCaudlcss, lately Assistant-superinten- 

 dent of the Royal Agricultural College at Glas- 

 neven, Ireland. Other eminent European teachers 

 will prol)ably be secured. The Institution is 

 crowded with students. 



— J. L. Henry, a practicing physician at Boyd 

 Station, Ky., writes to the Cmintri/ Gentlemen that 

 by doctoring his omti horse he has learned that the 

 following is as nearly an infiiUible remedy for bots 

 as any used. Take one Stricknos Nux Vomica 

 Bean, cut in pieces, make one quart of tea; give 

 one pint ; if not relieved in from thirty to sixty 

 minutes, give the other pint. 



— A recent wTiter states that he effectually dis- 

 posed of certiiin weeds in the lawn, among them 

 horseradish, "liy cutting with a spade two or three 

 inches below the crowns, and pouring on the part 

 left in the ground a little kerosene. The sod was 

 dropped back, and the horseradish foiled again to 

 put in an appearance. Any troublesome weeds can 

 easily be killed in this way without injuring the 

 grass." 



— A correspondent of the Country Gentleman 

 says if copperas and saltpetre water are used around 

 pear trees, the trees will show the effects in a large 

 yield of fruit. He tried this on a Bartlett pear 

 tree that had yielded no fruit for two years previ- 

 ous; that very year it yielded loo large, fine pears, 

 and the following year 250 lai'ge, fine ones, and it 

 is still doing finely. If pear trees want iron which 

 most soils are deficient in, sulphate of iron, or cop- 

 peras, is a good way to supply it. 



— A writer in the Toronto Globe says that for the 

 past six years as soon as grass can be cut he spreads 

 a quantity of newly cut grass under his gooseberry 

 bushes and lets it remain all summer. That treat- 

 ment combined with very high cultivation and 

 close pruning, has been a complete preventive of 

 mildew for the last six years. He has had every 

 year for that time splendid crops of large sound 

 berries ; some of them nearly as large as small 

 plums. 



— Ducks are said to do good service in extermi- 

 nating the potato bug. A gentleman of Piqua, 

 Ohio, put a pair of Muscovies into his potato patch 

 which was literally swarming with bugs. The 

 ducks ate the bugs with such avidity that the lat- 

 ter were soon exterminated, and the patch has not 

 since been troubled with them. So say the papers ; 

 and we hope it is true, but as all accounts that we 

 have seen agi'ce that poultry will not touch a Col- 

 orado potato bug, we fear there is a mistake some- 

 where in the statement. 



— A correspondent of the New Orleans Rural 

 Southland says, "the rains during the whole spring 

 Lave beea almost constant, Mith every now and 



