38 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Jan. 
butter in churning. This may be good; but the best 
way we have found is, to put a peck of carrots—not into 
the churn, but—into the cow’s stomach every morning 
and evening. -— 
J. D. L, Won, N. Y.—“ Breck’s Book of Flowers,” 
is probably ns good a book on the subject as you can 
procure. Price, 75 cents. 
C. T., Uniontown, Pa. —We know of no such mill 
as you inquire for. 
Good and Bad Work. —A farmer, says Cole, dis¬ 
missed a hand because, in his absence, he set only nine 
trees in a day. The farmer set out the remaining 91 
of the hundred himself the next day. The result was, 
that the nine bore more fruit the first year of bearing 
than all the others.- 
Soft-Soaping Rabbits. —We are informed that the 
application of soft-soap to the trunks of fruit trees late 
in autumn, or in early winter, will effectually protect 
them from the attacks of rabbits. It is applied with a 
“ swab.” - 
Epitome of Farming. —Make plenty of manure ; 
put it on plentifully, and then keep the ground clean— 
crop by rotation—underdrain when necessary, and 
plow deep where admissable—keep the best animals, 
sell or kill the worst, and keep all comfortable, well and 
regularly fed, and you will farm well and profitably. 
Index to Good Farming. —An English agricultu¬ 
rist quotes the old proverb, “ Wherever the foot of the 
sheep touches, the land is turned to gold,” and adds, 
“ Show me a man’s turnep field, and I’ll tell you what 
sort of a farmer ho is.” We may modify this for Ame¬ 
rica, and say, “ Show mo a man’s manure heap and 
corn field, and I’ll t-ell you his character as a farmer.” 
Threshing in Winter. —A correspondent of the 
Michigan Farmer says that he bought, one year and a 
half ago, one of Emery’s best Railway Powers and 
Threshers, for $165, and that it has already nearly 
paid for itself, in the following way. He set the ma¬ 
chine on one corner of his lai-ge barn floor, and let it 
stand there during the winter. Every morning, before 
his boys went to school, they put the ponies on the 
machine, .and in a few minutes threshed out 100 to 
150 sheaves. This method gives the fresh straw daily 
ts his cattle, and by spring his grain is all threshed, 
when the machine is carefully put away. 
South Downs for Mutton. —The Wool Grower 
knows a gentleman in England, who annually pays 
$264 for the use of a South-Down buck for three 
months, and thus simply to raise sheep for the butcher. 
He keeps 400 breeding ewe3, selecting 60 to 80 of the 
best for his hired buck, and thus greatly improves the 
whole flock. - 
1C?" “Muscatine,” an ox six years old, raised at 
Muscatine, Iowa, now en route for the World's Fair, is 
believed to be the largest ox in the United States. He 
is 6 feet 8 inches high, 17 feet and 4 inches long, girts 
10 feet 9 inches, and if fatted, it is believed, would 
weigh over 4,000 pounds. 
Borers and Grubs. 
A correspondent of extensive experience makes the 
following remark:—“I have long known that urine 
protects apple, quince, and peach trees, against the 
worms that attack them near the ground; and some 
recent observations have induced the belief that a sho- 
\elfulof fresh manure from the stable or hog pen is 
equally efficacious. It both protects them, and nour¬ 
ishes.” —— 
How to Treat Trees received when the 
Ground is Frozen, or during Freezing Wea¬ 
ther. —We occasionally hear of people being quite at 
a loss to know what to do with trees received in a cold 
time, or when the ground is frozen. The way is, either 
deposit the packages in a cellar as they are received, 
or open them and set the roots in earth until the wea¬ 
ther changes : or a trench may be made in the open 
ground, even if the surface must be broken with a pick¬ 
axe, and the trees laid in until they can be planted. 
They may remain in this state quite safe all winter. 
Every season we receive packages of trees from Europe 
in mid winter, and we find no difficulty in taking caro 
of them in this way.— Horticulturist. 
The Way to Spoil Potatoes. —It is a little singu¬ 
lar that many who are otherwise excellent cooks are 
ignorant of the rich, dry, mealy vegetables ; theirs 
are invariably “soggy” and heavy as bread when the 
yeast is. worthless. Their method of spoiling potatoes 
after they are well cooked is wonderfulty simple. They 
place over the*dish containing them, hot and smoking 
from the boiler, a tight cover, and keep it there—any 
one can do it, and eat water-logged potatoes in conse¬ 
quence. Better put their cover out of sight, even if the 
contents of the dish should cool a few minutes sooner 
on that account. Boiled potatoes intended for the table 
should not be covered a moment .—Norwich Examiner. 
A Secret for a Farmer's Wife. —While the milk¬ 
ing of your cows is going on, let your pans be placed in 
a kettle of boiling water. Turn the milk into one of 
the pans taken from the kettle, and cover the same with 
another of the hot pans, and proceed in the same man¬ 
ner with the whole mess of milk, and you will find that 
you have double the quantity of sweet and delicious 
butter. Try this, dairy women, and write us the results 
will you?— Extract . 
Indian Meal Waffles. —Boil two cups o ...ominy 
very soft, add an equal quantity of sifted Indian meal, 
a tablespoonful of salt, half a teacup of butter, and three 
eggs, with milk sufficient to make a thin batter. Beat 
all well together, and bake in waffle irons. When eggs 
cannot be procured, yeast is a good substitute—put a 
spoonful in the batter, and let it stand an hour to rise. 
To Roast Ducks. —Pick, draw and singe them. Cut 
off the head; dip the feet in boiling water to remove 
the yellow skin; truss them plump, turning the feet 
flat upon the back. Stuff the same as goose, aud serve 
with gravy and apple-sauce. An hour wiil roast a duck. 
Frosts. —The present season has been signalized by 
the occurrence of frosts in each month so far since the 
year began, with the possible exception of June. Th8 
one in July was not sufficiently intense to do any harm, 
but those which occurred about the 25th of August were 
so severe as to do a great amount of damage. In a late 
trip inland, we saw pieces of corn as thoroughly dried to 
appearance as in December. Other pieces seemed to 
suffer only partially, while the greater portion had es¬ 
caped with little or no damage. Many fields of buck¬ 
wheat also are entirely destroyed; while melon vines 
give unmistakeable signs of the blighting traces of the 
fingers of premature autumn .—Prairie Farmer. 
