494 
JOURNAL  OP  SORTICULTURP  AND  COTTAOE  OaRDENER. 
June  3,  Ml. 
existed  during  the  lives  of  two  tenants  ;  the  third  man,  who  was  of 
a  very  orderly  turn,  persuaded  his  landlord  to  remedy  the  evil,  to 
the  great  benefit  of  the  implements  and  to  the  general  appearance 
of  the  premises. 
Baing  on  the  subject  of  implements,  shall  we  suggest  a  coat  of 
paint  is  not  costly,  and  a  wonderful  preventive  of  decay  ?  Here, 
too,  we  exercise  another  little  economy.  We  use  long  carts,  with 
open  sides,  for  harvest ;  they  can  carry  a  tremendous  load,  but  lie  idle 
except  during  hay  and  corn  harvest.  Wheels  do  not  improve  with 
drought,  so  off  they  come  from  the  long  cart,  and  are  used  for  the 
ordinary  farm  vehicle,  usually  devoted  to  manure  leading  and 
general  work. 
In  the  stable,  too,  the  fumes  of  ammonia  from  the  horses  is 
very  destructive  to  gearing.  Can  the  lads  only  be  persuaded  to 
walk  a  few  steps  to  a  rough  saddle-room  and  hang  each  article 
carefully  up,  harness  would  have  a  much  longer  life.  The  same 
applies  to  an  occasional  cleaning,  and  oil  makes  leather  supple,  and 
causes  the  texture  to  resist  the  action  of  water  better.  “  A  place 
for  everything  and  everything  in  its  place.”  How  annoying  it  is 
to  see  rakes  and  forks  tossed  about  anywhere  and  anyhow.  There 
are  boys,  and  even  men,  who  will  never  think  of  moving  one 
step  out  of  their  way  just  to  put  a  fork  in  a  corner  or  hang  up  a 
rake. 
On  a  farm  there  is  a  constant  need  for  repairs  (in  woodwork). 
Troughs,  tumbrils,  gates,  trays — i.e.f  hurdles,  and  a  thousand  other 
things  too  numerous  to  mention,  are  always  needing  “  the  stitch 
in  time.”  If  you  are  always  sending  down  to  the  wheelwright’s, 
whatever  else  he  does,  of  one  thing  you  are  certain — a  pretty  long 
bill  at  Christmas. 
We  can  remember  in  the  days  of  long  ago  the  carpenter’s  shop 
on  our  farm,  and  how  our  father  with  the  aid  of  a  clever  foreman 
did  all  the  repairs  himself  on  wet  days.  We  never  bought  a  gate. 
They  were  all  home  made,  and  painted  red  to  give  a  touch  of 
colour  to  the  landscape.  Ah !  now  we  touch  another  point.  No 
gate  lasts  out  half  its  natural  life  if  badly  hung — it  knocks  itself 
to  pieces,  and  soon  pulls  the  post  out  of  plumb,  and  is  a  constant 
source  of  aggravation  to  every  user. 
There  was  a  time  when  a  farmer’s  great  difficulty  was  to  get 
all  his  straw  trodden  down  into  a  semblance  of  manure.  Those 
halycon  days  are  fled,  and  yet  we  doubt  if  we  have  got  over  their 
effects.  It  is  most  difficult  to  get  the  ordinary  farm  labourer  to 
economise  either  his  straw  or  even  hay,  and  how  few  will  take  the 
trouble  to  weigh  out  cake  or  other  feeding  stuffs.  There  is  so 
much  rule  of  thumb  or  guess  work,  and  it  is  most  of  it  in  favour 
of  the  stock  rather  than  the  master.  Far  be  it  for  us  to  wish  to 
Btint  any  live  stock,  but  the  hand-food  they  get  is  very  valuable 
and  costs  gold,  and  it  must  not  be  treated  lightly. 
Have  yon  ever,  kind  reader,  seen  in  a  neglected  corner  of  farm 
premises  piles  of  old  wood  ?  The  remains  of  once  fences,  aged 
gate  posts,  hedgerow  timber,  not  good  enough  for  market  ?  Have 
you  observed  how  the  heap  unmolested  grows,  and  how  at  the  same 
time  costly  coal  is  used  for  steaming,  threshing,  and  house 
purposes  ?  A  steam  engine  in  conjunction  with  a  circular  saw  for 
a  day  will  provide  out  of  that  heap  of  waste  a  noble  pile  of 
excellent  firing.  Have  you,  again,  ever  seen  in  &  drv  season  the 
water  cart  hard  at  work  providing  for  thirsty  stock  ?  And  have 
you,  again,  on  the  same  premises  on  a  winter’s  day  heard  the  drip, 
drip  from  the  eaves  of  all  the  buildings  ? 
A  friend  who  bought  a  property  on  the  high  wolds  where  water 
was  always  scarce,  before  he  did  a  brick  of  building  constructed 
an  immense  cistern,  rightly  assuming  that  with  proper  management 
winter  surplus  should  help  out  summer  drought. 
Has  anyone  ever  seen  the  leakage  of  valuable  liquid  manure 
from  crewyard  or  cowhouse?  The  storage  of  Potatoes,  Swedes, 
or  Mangolds  where  every  passing  hen  could  pick  her  fill  ?  How 
about  that  last  load  of  engine  coal,  thrown  in  a  comer  ?  If  not  an 
actual  temptation  to  a  poor  man,  at  any  rate  it  does  not  increase 
exposed  to  wind  and  weather.  Were  all  the  thatch  pegs  carefully 
put  aside  ready  for  next  harvest  when  that  Wheat  stack  was 
stripped  for  threshing  ?  and  was  the  cord  used  in  tying  the 
sheaves  laid  aside  for  Potato  and  corn  bags,  or  allowed  to  go  in 
among  the  straw,  indigestible  as  food,  and  not  desirable  as 
bedding  ? 
It  seems  an  easy  matter  to  steam  Potatoes  (we  mean  on  a  large 
scale  for  stock,  not  the  family  tureen),  but  the  generating  of  that 
steam  may  be  made  a  cheap  or  costly  affair,  depending  on  the 
common  sense,  or  want  of  it,  on  the  part  of  the  steamer — is  there 
such  a  word  ?  It  is  just  the  saiqe  with  steam  power  used  in  any 
department  of  farm  work.  There  used  to  be  men  who  peram¬ 
bulated  the  country  and  mended  all  sacks  ;  it  is  a  long  time  since 
we  saw  one.  Either  the  sacks  go  unrnended,  or  new  ones  are  bought 
or  hired. 
J ust  two  more  points  and  we  have  done.  Is  it  absolutely  necessary 
to  have  such  immense  hedges  in  arable  fields  ?  Would  not  a  strong 
well-grown  quickset  fence  be  even  more  effectual  than  that  mass 
of  straggling  briar,  bramble,  grass  and  rubbish  now  dignified  by 
that  name  ?  True,  the  country  lanes  might  not  be  so  picturesque, 
but  economy  before  beauty,  my  friends.  What,  too  about 
“  garings  ”  or  headlands  ?  Remember  land  so  often  trodden  on  is 
practically  unworkable,  and  therefore  unprofitable.  There  must 
be  a  little  space  left  for  Turnips,  but  let  it  be  as  little  as  possible. 
We  cannot  afford  to  lose  an  atom  of  crop  ;  letting  alone  the 
unsightliness,  it  is  the  contrast  between  a  fine  Swede  crop  garnished 
with  an  edging  of  very  inferior  White  Turnips. 
WORK  ON  THE  HOME  FARM. 
The  last  ploughings  are  completed,  and  the  main  crops  of  Turnips 
will  be  sown  as  soon  as  rain  comes.  If  sown  with  the  soil  in  its  present 
dry  state  we  doubt  whether  the  seed  would  germinate  ;  some  of  it  might, 
but  it  is  a  bad  thing  to  have  uneven  germination  of  Turnip  seed  ;  insect 
pests  have  more  time  in  which  to  work  destruction,  and  the  labour  of 
hoeing  and  thinning  is  much  increase!. 
The  land  is  now  becoming  decidedly  warm  as  the  result  of  the  bright 
sunshine,  and  a  good  day’s  rain  would  put  it  into  such  fine  condition 
that  the  seed  would  soon  be  up  after  sowing,  and  be  much  more  satis¬ 
factory  in  the  end  than  if  sown  now  and  coming  up  piecemeal.  This 
has  been  the  case  with  Mangold,  which  promises  to  be  very  patchy, 
the  soil  having  been  dry  and  rough  in  some  places. 
Prospects  of  winter  fodder  are  becoming  gloomier  day  by  day.  We 
hear  of  farmers  beginning  to  stock  their  meadows,  the  grass  being  sorely 
needed  at  the  present  time ;  but  how  about  the  winter  1  It  is  hardly 
likely  that  Wheat  straw  will  be  a  heavy  crop,  though  the  grain  may  be, 
and  Barley  and  Oats  mnst  be  very  short  in  the  straw  unless  the  weather 
turns  topsy-turvy  and  remains  so  until  August.  Another  week  of 
drought  will  practically  ruin  the  prospect  of  even  an  average  supply  of 
fodder.  Naturally  prices  are  rising,  and  we  hear  of  £155  being  made  of 
a  stack  for  which  only  £70  was  bid  last  autumn. 
Potatoes  are  growing  fast,  and  horse-hoeing  progresses  apace.  The 
hand  hoe  will  soon  have  its  turn  amongst  them,  the  spring  corn  being 
now  about  looked  over. 
Ewes  are  being  washed  ready  for  clipping,  and  some  people  are 
clipping  already.  It  is  time  the  wool  was  off,  but  the  winds  have  been 
very  cold  and  might  give  the  animals  a  chill,  resulting  in  downfall,  a 
mo3t  dangerous  complaint  to  the  sheep.  There  has  been  no  trouble  with 
maggots  ai  yet ;  but  it  is  maggot  time,  and  for  that  reason  the  wool 
would  be  better  off  the  sheeps?  back.  Shepherding  is  so  much  easier. 
OUR  LETTER  BOX. 
Milk  Fever  ( D .  R.  D.). — You  do  quite  right  in  penning  your 
ia-calvers  at  least  three  weeks  before  calving,  but  you  do  not  -appear  to 
give  a  purgative,  which  is  highly  necessary.  Ep3om  salts  and  powdered 
aloes  make  the  best  mixture.  With  a  cow  on  dry  food  or  naturally 
costive  nearly  1  lb.  salts  and  from  2  to  4  drachms  of  aloes  make  a  dose. 
One  dose  a  fortnight  before  calving,  a  second  two  or  three  days  before, 
and  a  third  at,  say,  two  or  six  hours  after  calving.  Calve,  if  possible,  in 
a  fresh  cow  house,  or  at  any  rate  limewash.  We  will  treat  this  subject 
more  exhaustively  in  an  early  number  of  the  Journal. 
METEOROLOGICAL  OBSERVATIONS, 
Qamdbn  Squa.ru,  London. 
Lat .  51°  19' 40"  N. ;  Long.  0°  8/ 0"  W.:  Altitude  111  feet. 
DATE. 
9  A.M. 
In  the  Day. 
1897. 
|  Barometer 
at  32°,  and 
|  Sea  Level. 
Hygrometer. 
Direc¬ 
tion  of 
Temp, 
of  soil 
at 
1  foot. 
Shade  Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Temperature 
i 
03 
May. 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Wind. 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
Sun. 
On 
Grass. 
Sunday  ...  23 
Inohs. 
29-827 
leg. 
62-3 
deg. 
47-2 
N.E. 
deg. 
57-4 
deg. 
68-2 
deg. 
40-8 
deg. 
114-0 
deg. 
35-2 
Inohi. 
Monday  ....  24 
^9-90S 
49-2 
41-1 
N. 
57-S 
61-4 
45  1 
110-9 
40-2 
— 
Tuesday....  25 
29-844 
54-1 
48-8 
S.W. 
57-0 
7l-8 
42-7 
121-2 
36-7 
— 
Wednesday  26 
29-558 
55-6 
50-6 
s.w. 
57-6 
57-7 
49-9 
79-1 
44-9 
0-084 
Th  ursday  ..  27 
29-3W2 
549 
50-6 
S.E. 
55-9 
64-2 
48-9 
109-7 
430 
0  104 
Friday  ....  28 
29-359 
53  5 
49-6 
s:e. 
56-8 
59-2 
46-1 
102-9 
39-0 
0028 
Saturday  . .  29 
29-t60 
58-7 
61-4 
s.w. 
55-1 
62-2 
48-1 
96-8 
4J-0 
0-090 
29-649 
54-0 
49-3 
66-8 
63  5 
45-9 
104-9 
401 
0-290 
S3rd.— Bright  and  sunny  all  day  ;  clear  night. 
24th.— Overcast  early,  gleams  of  sun  about  11  A.M.,  and  bright  afternoon. 
25th. — Generally  cloudy,  and  hazy  and  close,  but  occasional  sunshine.  Spots  of  rain  at 
1.50  p.m.  and  in  evening. 
23th.— Overcast  throughout;  almost  continuous  slight  rain  or  drizzle,  from  8.30  A.M 
to  l  p.m.,  and  slight  showers  later. 
27th.— Cloud,  sunshine  and  showers ;  c'.oud  preponderating  in  the  morning  and  sun¬ 
shine  in  the  afternoon.  Rain  from  9.30  p.m  to  11.30  p.m. 
28th. — Alternate  cloud,  showers,  and  sunshine.  A  little  hail  at  1  20  p.m. 
29th.— Occasional  sun  early  and  about  4.30  E.M.  Rain  from  0.30  p.m.  to  3  P.M. 
The  drought  broke  on  the  25th,  having  lasted  almost  three  weeks.  Temperature 
near  the  average.— G.  J.  SYMONS. 
