otherwise unoccupied stage. They like a 
temperature of 45 to 55 degrees, preferably 50 
to 55 degrees. 
Dahlias. —Treat as cannaa. Florists often 
cover the “roots” with loam in order to keep 
them plump. Lay on a shelf in a dry cellar, 
heated shed, or elsewhere where a tempera¬ 
ture of 50 to 55 degrees may be maintained. 
Four, o’clocks —Keep in small heaps 
mixed with dryish loam in a greenhouse, shed 
or cellar, with a temperature of 40 to 50 de¬ 
grees. They are so easily raised from seed 
that I do not often, except in the case of 
choice varieties, keep any old roots over 
Winter. 
Gladioli.— When they have done bloom¬ 
ing and appear fully ripened, cut over the tops 
to within seven or nine inches of the bulbs; 
lift the latter and tie them into bundles of 35 
to 40, as you would onions or herbs, and hang 
them up on nails in a dry, airy shed. Or you 
may top them over about an inch or two from 
the bulbs, and spread them out to dry, then 
store in shallow boxes. Anyway, it is best to 
remove the parts of the stem as soon as they 
have withered or ripened enough to part 
readily from the bulbs, and then store the 
latter in boxes or drawers, or in paper or mus¬ 
lin bags. Large growers store them in boxes 
which they pile one above another, but with 
open spaces, three to four inches wide, be 
tween the boxes. They w ill keep-fairly well 
in a temperature just above freezing, but bet¬ 
ter and surer in one of 45 to 50 degrees. 
Gloxinias. —Treat in the same way as be¬ 
gonias, except that a minimum temperature 
of 55 degrees is imperative. 
Madeira Vinks —Keep these alone or mix¬ 
ed with dry earth, in shallow layers on the 
floors or shelves, or in baskets or shallow 
boxes, in a temperature of 40 to 45 degrees. 
They are easily kept. If warm and very dry 
they shrivel badly; if in large heaps, they are 
apt to sprout prematurely. 
Salvia patens. —Keep mixed with earth 
and in the coolest part of the shed or cellar, 
providing the temperature is above the freez¬ 
ing point. As it grows and blossoms from 
seed as freely and quickly as an annual, I do 
not often bother keeping the old roots over 
Winter. 
Tigridias.— Treat these in the same way 
as gladioli. But as rats and mice are very 
fond of them, keep the bulbs beyond the reacn 
of these depredators. We have kept them as 
well as cau be in a temperature of 45 to 
50 degrees; but some growers prefer 50 to 55 
degrees. 
Tcbei.oses.— Lift before they get cut down 
by frost, say, in October, and cat over the 
green tops to within a couple of inches of the 
tops of the bulbs. Spread out the latter to 
ftelii Crops. 
POTATO TEST. 
wSSod 
iss * 9 HUU 
ct 
Cft C* Vi CJf Of Crt ZJX Pi OX in 
S •»**»»* 
* y ^_ 
50.0 o O O Ci -1 cr> 
ii\__ 
u h u * *—* 
r-‘C!I.CWI»MC--10l!O5C4‘M 
S 
JO 
•saojujod 
jo-Oil 
jBfC P o o o ® o 
** — -V T - 0.5^ n 
-T9S0''SrS CO 
ay O cr-tq O . » -! O 
2,2=-o # er$ 5:3 
?'*3 8*51 g § 
O D 
ct a fD O O o T3 
Oi a P d . “7 ^ 
3 ® .T *5 St g £• ST 
| ;,**s*g 
5- o-£:S- g S' ’ 
IJi Q o o _ 
« P Nj 3 
PfpoS 
ctP D 
^ T3 P - 
• CD Jp 
* o 
»1 
Co p o 
5 2 A 2. «• 
JV ““ X 
o =’ 3 >‘ ° 
V 3 
5® a 9 o 
5 “• •- p* 
•• Si- £ P 
< * pTct; 81 
$ B S- 
•-«, M _T 3 to 
» O 5 oj 
„ ® ^ ps O 
B • S P 5 
Hills nearly 2)£ feet apart each way—one 
piece with one eye in each hill—I could not 
give weight inounces—I tested one rod square 
(lfi>£ feet each way), of the Blush. There 
were 49 hills in the piece; number of pota 
toes, 456; weight, 189 pounds. This looks 
small ween compared with the yield mention¬ 
ed in a late Rural by S. W. B., of Idaho, 
whose five hills weighed 167 pounds. If the 
bills are not very far apart, he ought to have 
between 2.000 and 3,000 bushels to the acre, 
which is a very fair yield. It beats the Rural 
trials all to pieces. J. L. 
Dunedin, Ont. Canada. 
Cl )t 
PIG DIET. 
COL F. D. CURTIS. 
dry; then store them a few inches deep on a 
dry floor, on shelves, in boxes, or baskets. 
When well dried, say, in some weeks after 
being lifted, separate the offsets from the 
central or large bnlbs, the first to be used next 
Summer for stock plants, and the last for 
flowering bulbs. Tuberoses must be wintered 
in a high temperature, say 55 to 65 degrees. 
Lilies. —There are many lilies of uncertain 
hardiness, which, on account of misunder¬ 
stood conditions of cultivation, fail to thrive 
satisfactorily with us wtien permantly planted 
out; for instance, L. Browni, L. Krameri, 
and often tne varieties of L. longiflorum. 
But wben lifted in the Fall, wintered in doors, 
and planted out in early Spring, they usually 
prove satisfactory enough. Place them, one 
deep and near together, in flits with loam 
enough about them to barely cover the bulbs; 
a little moss should bestrewn over the crowns. 
Keep in a temperature of about 4U degrees. 
By keeping them entirely out of the ground, 
as we would a gladiolus or tuberose, we de¬ 
stroy the thick, fleshy roots, and this would 
materially injure the bulbs. 
Temperature —Gladioli, tigridias, cannas, 
tuberous-rooted begonias, and many other 
plants having root stocks of similar nature, 
will survive our Winters out of-doors, provid¬ 
ing their bulbs, tubers, conns, rhizomes, or 
whatever else they may be, are so well 
mulched over that frost cannot reach ♦hem. 
But this should not lead us to believe that 
when these “roots” are lifted and housed for 
safe keeping over Winter, they may be pre¬ 
served safely in the attic, shed, cellar or else¬ 
where, where they are just barely protected 
from frost. As a rule, the wintering temper¬ 
ature is too low. The annual great losses 
among gloxinias, caladiums and tuberoses are 
mostly due to too low a temperature. 
Storage. —Ventilate. Maintain au even 
temperature. Guard against undue drying 
influences, whether by fire or sun heat, or 
drafts. Preserve from drip or wetting in auy 
way. Do not have the piles too large, or the 
layers too thick. If stored in boxes placed 
one above the other, have an open air space 
of two or more Inches between the boxes. 
Examine the bulbs in Winter and remove 
rotting ones or diseased parts. 
Evils of over feeding: how to detect them ; 
badly assimilated food makes unhealthy 
blood and unsound flesh; examples from 
human experience; how to feed properly; 
need of variety in feeding. 
Hogs will eat more than they can digest of 
any kind of concentrated food. Wben they 
have all the corn meal they want, at least a 
fourth of it is wasted by being voided iu its 
natural state. Aliy farmer can satisfy him¬ 
self of this by making a careful examination 
of the droppings. Another sign that things 
are going wrong, is the rank smell of the ex¬ 
crement. When this is the case, it shows that 
the hogs are overfed, and that the stomach 
and bowels are so feverish that there is a con¬ 
stant fermentation of the food, A person 
with a dyspeptic stomach and an observing 
mind knows this is true in his own ease; and 
the same law applies to swine, only the effects 
are more manifest. An all corn diet will put 
the animal into this feverish com! ition, and the 
stench follows. The same smell may arise in 
the feeding of beef cattle when they eat too 
much corn. I have heard many a farmer 
say, “My hogs are doing well; just notice how 
they smell.” All wrong. Wben they are 
doing well, there should be very little smell. 
W hen the stomach is in such a condition that 
active fermentation takes place as soon as it 
is filled with food, there will not be a complete 
digestion and assimilation of the food, and 
when this is the case, the blood is impure, and 
its deposits of flesh and tissue are not perfect; 
or, in other words, they are diseased. If 
anyone doubts this, let him so eat that a fer¬ 
mented condition of the contents of the 
stomach is kept up for a few days, and he 
will begin to say, “Ohl how my head aches,” 
or, “My kidneys seem to be out of order. I 
have a cough, my throat burns. 1 am out of 
sorts generally.” Of course he is; his blood 
is partially poisoned; and so is a hog’s under 
similar conditions, only in its case, the evil is 
greater as the amount of fermentable stuff is 
so much larger. 
The result of this sort of doings is very often 
in the case of people some chronic malady, 
and doctors, with wise looks, treat the mere 
symptom as they did in my case for years 
without ever touching the cause, The truth 
is that nearly all the ill9 of the flesh emanate 
from the stomach. Hogs finish up with 
founder, diseased livers, which farmers often 
notice, paralysis or consumption. A wise 
physician would advise wholesome food for 
his patients, and food so (ombined that it 
would not ferment in the stomach, or that it 
be prepared so that this disorganizing result 
would not follow. There is no doubt that 
when corn-meal is cooked and fed in small 
quantities, it is in the most wholesome form 
and also iu a state to yield up its constituents 
for growth. However, even in this form it 
may ferment. It does with some people, and 
it may with some hogs; for let it be remem¬ 
bered the stomachs of all animals are not 
alike in ihese respects. Next, wben they are 
fermented enough to be sour before they’ are 
fed, all meals are iu a healthful and econom¬ 
ical form for feeding to bogs. Lastly, in 
order to secure a fuller digestion, and to keep 
the stomach in good condition, there should 
be a mixture of fruit or roots with the meal; 
vegetables of any kind are good for this pur¬ 
pose. They perform a double work, as they 
help to All the stomach aud so keep out au 
undue amount of rich food, and they prevent 
its forming into a concentrated mass tin 
pervious to the gastric juices, so delaying the 
processes of digestion, until the natural heat 
of the system, and the extra heat caused by 
the combination of the nitrogeu (in food) and 
the water also taken into the stomach, begin 
the work of fermentation, and so resist a 
natural digestion, until the foBtid mass is ex 
polled by the disturbed and disorganized 
stomach, and the bowels in full sympathy 
with it and equally irritated. A little more 
sanitary sense and less corn would make 
better hogs. 
HOW TO FEED CORN TO PIGS.—No 2. 
PROFESSOR J. W. SANBORN. 
HOGS FED ON THE EXCRETA OF FATTENING 
STEERS. 
By adopting the usuil method of Winter 
fattening of hogs in connection with fattening 
cattle, a better result may be gained for aught 
one can positively assert; for we cannot say- 
just what proportion of the food each has 
eaten. If we accept the usual position (against 
which no positive facts can be adduced), that 
rate of food consumption in cold weather must 
likewise be cut off. Those extra 10 months of 
mere maintenance fodder, at three pounds or 
more of corn per day, or 9C0 to 1,000 pounds 
given to run the pig machine 300 days more 
than is necessary, mean $5 for corn, plus at¬ 
tendance, risk aud interest. Now are we bound 
to this custom < Most emphatically no. 
A SUBSTITUTE PRACTICE. 
A shelter for the breeding sow, and early 
pigs sold the first Fall, will warrant Kansas 
farmers in feeding their corn to pigs and will 
produce, by the following practice, about 13 
pounds of live pig for 56 pouuds of feed. 
Wean when six wec-bs old, and then feed 
middlings and corn meal half aud half, with 
skim-milk for a few weeks, wben skim-milk 
may be exchanged for water, if necessary, and 
corn meal for whole corn, if desirable. Feed 
the pigs in a pen iu as cool a spot, in the sum¬ 
mer months, as possible, and furnish them 
with clean water daily and all of the grass 
they will eat. This grass can be put iu a slot¬ 
ted rack as for sheep. Give in every 100 
pounds of meal or corn, one pound of sifted 
ashes. If the pig weighs 25 pounds when 
weaned, then the 200 pounds to be added to 
make 225 pounds, the selling weight, will be 
made with 600 pounds of grain if meal, the ani¬ 
mal being fed during the last six to eight weeks 
on corn alone, if you so choose to do, although 
it will require, approximately, 650 pnunds to 
make the gain stated if corn is thus used. On 
the latter basis, S>£ pounds of grain give one 
of growth, or 56 pounds give 17.2 pounds of 
live pig. 25 per cent, of this result may be 
credited to the grass, leaving 12 9 pounds of 
pig per 56 pounds of grain food. The grass 
will be sold at about $10per ton of dry bay, 
while worth here, on the ground, uncut, but 
a trifle over $4. giving good pay for the extra 
trouble of cutting a supply every few days. 
Various reasons induce me to feed my pigs 
in a pen. I will notname them; but, of course, 
believe it the most economical way when man¬ 
ure and other factors are weighed. 
1 do not name the method that is wholly 
best in my food combination; but bend it to 
suit the great bins of corn in this quarter, and 
especially in Kansas. The middlings will 
prove the cheaper food and will give a health¬ 
ier pig and a richer manure. A larger pro¬ 
portion than named of corn will not materially 
affect the result, and the absence of skim-milk 
cheap corn (say, 25 to 30 cents per bushel) does 
not admit of profitable giindlug, and that 
the hogs that follow cattle and pick up the un¬ 
digested corn that has beeu passed through 
their stomach, get that which would have 
gone to waste and, hence, their fattening bills 
are less than the real value of the food from 
which their increase in weight has been made, 
there will be no critical data to define the re¬ 
lative charge to be made for a bushel of corn 
to the steer and to the pig, when the latter gets 
bis living from the remains of the food eaten 
by the former. Indeed a division of the value 
of corn thus fed i o a steer and to the pig second¬ 
hand. would have to be upon a sliding scale, 
becauso the more the amount given, the great¬ 
er the proportion excreted for the pig, and 
also the greater the tax laid upon the steer. 
A few data that I have gathered will illus¬ 
trate tliis fact, when takeu ia connection with 
the usual practice of keeping two to three 
shotea with every “full fed" steer. I fed four 
steers iu a barn, nine and a frictiou pounds of 
corn each for 61 days, or a total of 1.092 pounds. 
Their nmuure was given to one pig exclusively, 
and produced 15 pounds of gain, which gain 
should be made with less than 100 pounds of 
corn, or but little over live per cent, of 
value of the corn given was used by the 
pig. The pig was out of door9. It will be in¬ 
teresting to note that another pig of like 
weight, following a similar lot of steera fed 
like the first lot, save that corn meal was fed 
in the place of whole corn, had to be fed grain 
to save bim from starvation, after he had 
fallen off 13 pounds in a few days. These meal- 
fed steera gained 95 pouuds more than the corn- 
fed steers Whatever the exact data may be, 
the practical fact, in Missouri, ia that -‘fatten¬ 
ing cattle in Winter does not pay without the 
hoga." Believing that a better way can be 
suggested than this system, I will defer its 
consideration until the problem of cattle feed¬ 
ing is taken up. 
HOW TO FEED CORN TO PIGS. 
The value of early maturity of swine is a 
settled problem, and is beyond debate. I have 
taken weights for ten years, and have ascer¬ 
tained that a pig, when not growing, is using 
a heavy maintenance ration, heavier than that 
which steers use of hay. I have had 75 pound 
pigs to eat &9 high as seven per cent, of their 
live weight dally. Such a corn exterminator 
must be cut off in his career at as early a date 
as possible, it is preposterous to keep a shote 
17 months when Beveu is enough for the de 
mands of our markets, and enough to carry 
the weight up to the present weights that go to 
market. The mortality of winter must be cut 
off by having no winter pigs, and the high 
is not fatal. Skim-milk, in the above, was 
reckoned into grain and thus paid for. Having 
regarded the cutting of the grass as paid for, 
I will make the following estimate: 
Fig, at six weeks.$1.50 
Grass. 80 
Grain.... 3.75 
Balance of care.50 
Risk. A0 
Total, about half the former estimate $6 65 
Value of pig...— 9.00 
Agricultural College, Columbia. Mo. 
QL\)t .poultnj-Diuri) 1 . 
CAN POULTRY RAISING BE MADE A 
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS? 
P. H. JACOBS. 
Give to poultry the same care ns to other stock; 
raising poultry in large numbers; greater 
profits from poultry properly kept than 
from any other farm stock, in proportion to 
investment. ' _ 
In Spite of all that may have been written 
in favor of keeping poultry in large numbers, 
the fact remains that there are, in the United 
States, no large establishments which have 
realized profits in propeltion to those derived 
from a few fowla kept in the barnyard. That 
poultry may be made a business is certainly 
possible, and that larger profits can be realized 
from fowls, in proportion to capital invested, 
than from any other farm stock, has often 
been demonstrated. One of the reasons why 
poultry raising has not been conducted as an 
exclusive industry on farms, is because tho 
majority of farmers have looked upon poultry 
as unworthy of the constant supervision and 
attention usually bestowed upon other stock; 
and, moreover, few of them are familiar with 
the different breeds and their char acteristics. 
Wber 9 parties have abandoned all other pur¬ 
suits, and made poultry a specialty, they have 
been rewarded with success. A farmer will 
carefully feed his horse and dean out the 
stable dully, yet he would consider it unneces¬ 
sary to keep his poultry ami their quarters in 
the same condition, though his opportunities 
for profit from poultry are greater thau from 
other stock iu proportion. 
There are but few farms upon which over 
3 000 chicks are raised annually; but on one of 
them the proprietor was engaged in another oc¬ 
cupation, aud supposed he was giving his fowls 
the best care and attention, which was true in 
one respect, but he did not succeed in realizing a 
fair profit. The second season he solicited the 
