an evergreen of sub-tropical origin, and will not be likely to fruit
satisfactorily far north of the region of the orange. Like the fig, in
your latitude, it may stand what frosts you have and, like it, attain
considerable growth, but you will seldom get a crop. We know
enterprising nurserymen are telling us it will grow and fruit as far
north as Washington; but we were told the same story about the
eucalyptus, which proved to be no more hardy than the orange. Our
authorities for these opinions may be regarded as first-class--no less
than LeBon Jardinier, who says it can not be grown and successfully
fruited outside the region of the orange. Recently, at a horticultural
exhibition at Nice, France, there was a fine show of the kakis
contributed by a gardener in the vicinity of Toulon, of which the
official report gives this account: "Among the newer exotics were the
kakis, of Japan, grown at Toulon. The fruit is about the size of an
average apple, a bright, orange-red in color, and the tree is very
productive. The Japanese make a great account of it, both as a fruit,
when ripe, and as a source for obtaining tannin, in its green state. It
appears to accommodate itself remarkably well to the climate of
Provence, and especially merits to be introduced into Algeria, where it
will even do better in all reasonable probability.". In respect to the
appearance of the fruit, it more nearly resembles in shape and size a
bell pepper, than an apple, but the color is orange-red, as described.
It is pretty sure to cut a great figure among the fruit products of
Florida, where its successful cultivation will lend additional
attractions to that already seductive State.
MRS. SARAH Y. STAPLES, DALLAS, TEXAS.--I do not ask you for a remedy for
the roup, with which my fowls have been recently affected; but for a
course of treatment to follow to prevent its return?
ANSWER--The roup may be brought upon healthy fowls if they are shut up
in narrow and unventilated quarters at night, and of days turned out in
cold or wet weather. And it will almost certainly follow if they are
confined under glass, as they sometimes are in winter, in abandoned
green-houses. In the first place, see fowls have a dry and airy roosting
place, but where they will be out of a draft or cold currents. Feed once
daily in the morning, the following compounded rations. Raw onions one
part, pork-cracklins one part, and bread or boiled potatoes one part,
chopped tolerably fine, but do not wet the mixture before feeding. If
you can substitute a few bits of garlic for twice the measure of onions,
it will be all the better for the health of the fowls, but they might
taint the taste of the eggs. If fowls are fed this mixture once daily,
it don't matter much what the other food is, whether corn or small
grain, though for laying mill-screenings or shrunken wheat is best.
ASA GRAY, ROCKFORD, ILL.--I have seen it stated the daily rations of the
cowboys of the Southwest, in certain sections and during some months,
was confined to raw beef, rock salt, and red peppers. How is it?
ANSWER.--We don't know. Will someone familiar with cowboys and their
manner of living report. However, all things considered, the ration is
not a bad one, for the reason that raw beef digests in half the time of
beef well cooked, and the large, sweet pepper of the Southwest deprived
of its seeds is not near as hot in the mouth as it is commonly
represented.
R. ROOT, CLARKSVILLE, IOWA. 1. Does the basket willow have to be
cultivated like a field crop? 2. Is there more than one kind, and if so
which is best? 3. What kind of soil is best adapted to its cultivation?
ANSWER.--1. In some respects, yes; the land having to be given over to
them exclusively. In France the cuttings are planted from twelve to
fifteen inches apart in order to obtain long and slender shoots. 2.
There are half a dozen cultivated in Europe, the best two being the
Salix rubra or red Osier, and the Salix vitellina or yellow Osier. But a
hardier variety, Salix viminalis, is commonly preferred in this country
where the cultivation, though often undertaken, has never been very
successful, from the fact that American labor can not compete with the
labor of women and children in Europe. 3. In cool climates having a
moist atmosphere the Osier willow is successfully grown where ordinary
crops thrive, but in warmer and drier sections low and moist land must
be chosen. Indeed the whole tribe of willows love cool, moist
situations, and the richer the soil the stronger and quicker the growth.
We should be glad to hear from correspondents who cultivate, or who live
where the Osier is grown and prepared for market, the details of the
whole industry.
B.F.J.
WAYSIDE NOTES.
BY A MAN OF THE PRAIRIE.
I don't know that I really ought to take any credit to myself for it,
but I hope I have done something toward increasing the number of farmer
correspondents for the hale old PRAIRIE FARMER. I can't help
noticing, as I do with pleasure, that the number is increasing.
Furthermore, the correspondents all write well, I mean, simply; they
seem to have something to say, and say it in a manner that can be
readily understood. Their writings are instructive, too. Well, I hope
this writing fever, like most others, will prove highly contagious, and
have a run through the entire PRAIRIE FARMER family. I know
from experience the malady is not a dangerous one. At least it don't do
the writers any harm; if the readers can stand what I say, I am
satisfied. The editor may boil down our communications, or chop them up
and serve them in any style he chooses, so that he presents all the good
we mean to say, and we will be satisfied. Will we not,
fellow-contributors?
* * * * *
Rufus Blanchard, for many years a leading map publisher of Chicago, told
me the other day, that in 1838 he was farming in Union county, Ohio.
That year he grew about 1,000 bushels of oats, some 250 bushels of
wheat, and raised 100 hogs. He sold his oats for eleven cents per
bushel, his wheat for twenty-five cents, and his hogs for one cent and a
quarter per pound. He hauled his grain to Columbus, forty miles, to
market, and took his pay in salt. I remarked that this was pretty rough
farming. "On the contrary," said he, "in those days we were happy as
clams. We had all the pork we wanted without cost, for our hogs fattened
themselves on the mast of the woods. We paid by toll for grinding our
wheat into flour. The woods supplied us with deer, turkeys, and many
other kinds of game. Our clothing was homespun. We had plenty of corn
meal and cheaply grown vegetables, and helped each other in sickness or
accident. If a neighbor's log house burned down, we all joined together
in putting him up a better one than he had before. We had pretty good
schools and interesting religious meetings without expensive pew rents
or style in dress. We visited each other and had plenty of sound
amusement. I never was so happy or so well contented in my life," he
added, and I believe him, for his face is wrinkled with care and
saddened by misfortune. It don't do, you see, to get too far removed
from this simple, natural life.
* * * * *
I am looking out for a little colder weather. The pond is not yet frozen
sufficiently for us to cut ice as we want it. But both my neighbor and
myself have gotten all things in readiness for the harvest. I like an
open winter pretty well, but I do want ice.
* * * * *
It seems to me that Dr. Detmers is always going off "half-cocked." He
once did the foreign cattle shipping interest great harm by an
ill-advised and unwarranted dispatch concerning the prevalence of
pleuro-pneumonia at the Chicago Stock Yards, and now I notice that his
alleged statements regarding diseased hogs and the disposal of them at
the same point have furnished the French Corps Legislatif an excuse for
enacting the decree prohibiting the introduction of American pork
products into France. Isn't it about time the Department of Agriculture
at Washington sat a little down on this man who writes too much with his
pen? Not that I would silence any man who sticks to facts, no matter
whose soap-bubble he pricks; but a simple alarmist who rushes into print
mainly for the pleasure it gives him to see his name in print, and to
know that he is talked about, deserves to be squelched. For aught I
know, though, Dr. Detmers has been misrepresented by the wily Frenchmen.
What has Dr. Loring to say on the subject?
* * * * *
But, after all, as I think the editor of THE PRAIRIE FARMER
himself said some months ago, this foreign agitation of the live stock
question may result in great good, inasmuch as it must lead to proper
legislation in this country against the introduction and spread of
contagious diseases among animals. It is without doubt the basis of the
proceedings at the Chicago cattle-growers' convention in November last,
and of the present movement for immediate Congressional action upon the
matter. The difficulty abroad will, I believe, prove short-lived.
LETTER FROM CHAMPAIGN.
With the exception of two days, the 22d and 23d, which were stormy and
gave us ten to twelve inches of snow, followed by a little sleet and
rain, the latter half of December has been as delightful as the first
half was, though a good deal colder. The sleighing since the 17th has
never been better; and as there is ten inches to a foot of solid snow
now lying on the ground, it is likely to last some time longer. The
sleet and rain formed a crust an inch and a half thick, and though it is
not very strong, it, together with the compact snow, makes getting down
to the grass beneath quite out of the question, and stock have to depend
on the stalk fields or be fed hay and corn.
* * * * *
This will make a heavier draft upon the grain and hay in reserve than
has been anticipated by those who depend on carrying their stock through
mostly on grass, and be sure to lessen the surplus and raise the price
of corn, oats, and hay accordingly. Corn in the field is drying out so
fast under the influence of the dry, cold weather, stock do not refuse
soft corn as they did after the first sharp frost in November and
December. It is now seen that it would have been better to have left all
the soft and some of the immature corn in the field, than to have husked
and cribbed it as many did and lost more than would be believed, if
reported, by mould and rot.
* * * * *
At any rate the fall wheat is safe so long as the present covering of
snow lasts, and this more than compensates for the loss of winter
pasture. The snow, as near as I can learn, covers all Illinois, except a
few counties on the west, and as usual, is quite as heavy in the
timbered regions of which Vandalia is near the center, as in Northern
Illinois. So far the cold season considerably resembles the winter of
1878-79, and let us hope it will continue to the end, that we may have
light snows and many of them, good sleighing and moderate temperature
through January and February.
* * * * *
It has mystified me, as I have do doubt it has many others, why European
Governments have had so much to say about trichinæ in the hog, of which
we have had scarcely any, and so little of hog cholera, of which we have
had a good deal. But the mystery is now cleared up. The sickness and
losses from hog cholera, have either by error or intention been reported
to the several European Governments as results of almost universal
trichiniasis, and they have acted accordingly. That it should be so,
seems surprising, but that it is so, we have the proof in the following
paragraph from a late number of the Journal D'Agriculteur Pratique. The
writer, Dr. Hector George, one of the regular contributors, in a long
article opposing rescinding the order prohibiting the importation of
American pork products into France, first quotes the report of the
Chicago Board of Health, that 8 per cent of hogs slaughtered in Chicago
are afflicted with trichinæ, goes on to say: "This per cent, however
considerable it may be, is far inferior to the reality if we judge from
an official dispatch addressed to Earl Granville by Mr. Crump, English
Consul at Philadelphia." in 1880 trichiniasis destroyed 700,000 hogs in
Illinois alone. According to an official report by Dr. Detmers to the
Government of the United States, the hogs sick or dead from trichiniasis
are hurried to the packing houses and are thereafter prepared and
immediately sent off to Europe.
* * * * *
M. Paul Bert, from whom we have recently heard on the same subject and
in the same strain, no doubt got his inspiration from the article in the
Journal D'Agriculteur Pratique after which he probably read the official
report of Dr. Detmers, to whom he refers, and like Dr. George, either
did not understand or intentionally misconstrued it for political
purposes. Perhaps what Dr. Detmers did report was bad enough and
extravagant enough, but it had exclusive reference to hog cholera then
prevalent, as any one can satisfy himself who will turn to the reports
or the Department of Agriculture for the several years 1879, 1880, and
1881. B.F.J.
* * * * *
A RECORD OF UNFASHIONABLE CROSSES IN SHORT-HORN CATTLE PEDIGREES; a book
of 240 pages; the only work of the kind in existence. Send for a
circular. F.P. & O.M. HEALY, Bedford, Taylor Co., Iowa.
* * * * *
REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _from this
date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a copy
of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES, FREE!
_This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class weekly
agricultural paper in this country._
* * * * *
POULTRY NOTES
Poultry-Raisers. Write for Your Paper.
CHAT WITH CORRESPONDENTS.
Notwithstanding the fact that I have repeatedly said I would not answer
questions unless they came through THE PRAIRIE FARMER the
people who, by ways and means best known to themselves, have managed to
obtain my address, keep right on asking questions by mail at a rate that
would drive me frantic if anything could. But nothing ever troubles me
long at a time, so I take your disregard of my wishes good naturedly, as
I take everything else that I can't help, and in the future I will
answer all questions whether they come through THE PRAIRIE
FARMER or not, sometime. To be sure "sometime" is not very
definite, but it is the best I can do. My poultry letters are "too
numerous to mention" and it requires no small amount of time to answer
them all; but I won't growl about that if you will only be patient and
not grumble if you don't get an answer "by return mail," or "in the next
paper." All questions of general interest will be answered in these
columns as soon as possible, while those that require an immediate
answer will be attended to by mail. Poultry raisers who desire
information that I can give, and who have not my address, can address
THE PRAIRIE FARMER. However, let me ask you not to write except
when necessary, and then please put your questions as plainly as
possible, and "be as brief as the nature of the subject will permit."
And when you are writing to me don't use postal cards. Postal cards are
only intended for the briefest of business messages, but lots of people
use them for nearly all their correspondence. I know one man who writes
love letters on postal cards. Most women and some men manage to make one
side of a 5 × 3 inch postal card do duty for four pages of commercial
note. They will write up and down and across lots and on the bias until
the whole thing is so hopelessly mixed and tangled up that if the
mystery of a woman's ways, or the fate of Charlie Ross were solved upon
one of these cards all the "experts" in the world could not unravel it.
A penny saved may be as good as a penny earned, and I have no objections
to your saving it in a legitimate way, but when it comes to saving it at
the expense of my time, patience, and eye-sight, I object most
decidedly. Hereafter I will not answer postals; I will not even read
them.
An Iowa woman writes: "If it is true that vaccination prevents chicken
cholera, how does it happen that fowls which had the genuine chicken
cholera last season took the disease again this season and died from the
effects of it? This happened on our place." I have puzzled my brains on
the same thing but I am not scientific enough to explain things that I
don't know anything about, so I leave that conundrum to be answered by
some of the learned people who have the whole theory of chicken cholera
at their tongues' end.
Several correspondents want to know how to get rid of rats in
poultry-houses. One man says that he firmly believes that there are more
rats than chickens in his poultry-house, and although he has tried half
a dozen different kinds of rat-traps he rarely catches anything in them.
I never found rat-traps much good; some of them would catch one or two,
but after that the rest of the tribe would fight shy of all such devices
for their undoing. A well trained rat terrier proved to be the best
rat-trap we ever had on the premises, and for the poultry raiser who
likes dogs a good ratter would be a good investment. Or you can use some
one of the "exterminators" that may be obtained at the drug stores.
Remove your fowls to some other building, prepare the poison according
to directions, and place it in the poultry-house. The best kinds to use
are those that make the rats thirsty and cause them to die immediately
after drinking; water can then be left in the hen house and the dead
rats will be found close by. When you have rat poison in the house see
that it is properly marked and put out of reach of children and careless
hired girls; and always see that all remnants of bait are taken care of.
A Nebraska man wants to know why his hens don't lay. Says they are
mostly early pullets, have a fairly comfortable poultry house, all the
grain they will eat twice a day, and plenty of fresh water at all times.
It seems to me that "all the grain they will eat twice a day" is rather
overdoing the grain business. Have some of that grain ground, mix with
boiled vegetables and feed warm every morning; also give green food and
raw bone, and my word for it your hens will soon "lay like sixty."
FANNY FIELD.
FEATHER ENDS.
Plymouth Rock pullets are not always early layers, for they
often grow for ten or twelve months before laying, though some say as
early as six months after being hatched. The best plan the keep Plymouth
Rocks is to get the pullets hatched as early as possible. April is as
late as should be desired, but a Plymouth Rock cock crossed on common
hens will produce pullets that may be hatched later.
N.Y. Times: A poultry-house should be large enough to be airy,
but if it is kept strictly clean and sweet it will do no harm to be
somewhat crowded. A house 24 feet long, 10 feet wide, 5 feet high behind
and 8 feet in front, and having four roosting poles, all on a level and
only a foot from the floor, will hold 60 to 80 fowls. This manner of
arranging the roosts prevents a good deal of quarreling to get on the
top perch.
Poultry-rearing for export appears to be largely on the increase in
Germany; and Rummelsburg, near Berlin, boasts of the largest goose
market probably in the world. There arrive daily at that station on an
average forty cars with geese and ducks. Every car contains about 1,500,
thus making about 400,000 birds shipped every week, or an annual total
of 20,000,000. The largest portion of these birds are reared and
fattened in the surrounding provinces, and thence dispatched to all
parts of Germany, England, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and other
European countries.
Farmers' Call: Turkeys do not require as warm quarters in
winter as do other fowls. They will rest on a cherry tree when the
mercury is frozen solid in the thermometer bulb, and then fly down in
the morning and wade through the snow to cool off. This is a hint to the
turkey raiser. Do not confine the turkeys in quarters too warm and
close, and be sure that they have three or four hours' exercise each day
in the open air. The turkey is really a hardy fowl and easily wintered
if you do not pet it too much. Be a little unkind to it in cold weather.
About all the shelter they will need is a wind-break. Give them plenty
of highly nutritious food.
Mr. Harrison Weir writes: "What the farmers should do is
this--they should produce their poultry of the finest quality, poultry
of the stamp of the old Dorking--plump birds, thick-skinned birds,
small-boned birds, and birds with little offal--fat them well, truss
them well, and send them to market. The white-legged beauties would take
the highest price, and, if well seen to, would very soon drive the
foreign fowls from our markets, and English gold would gladden the home
of the English henwife. I may mention that a neighboring farmer intends
rearing 3,000 chickens next spring, all to be off his ground before the
beginning of May, when the cattle will come out. He expects to get 75c.
a head, and I believe he will, and it will pay him if he does."
Poultry houses should be whitewashed inside and out. For the
inside we add two tablespoonfuls of carbolic acid or a pound of sulphur
to a pailful of the wash (to kill vermin); do not be afraid of putting
on too much, but apply the wash to every corner and crevice in the
building. If you have plank floors, clean them off nicely and put on
three or four inches of fresh earth. Dirt floors should be dug up the
depth of one foot. Wash your windows (if you have any in your house, and
if not you ought to have them), so that the fowls can see daylight, and
in bad weather they will enjoy the confinement of the poultry houses
much better. Wash off the roosts with kerosene oil at least once a week.
Take every nest box and wash inside and out, and put in clean straw,
sprinkling upon it some sulphur or loose tobacco. Observe these rules,
and your fowls will do better and keep healthier. We find this good
advice floating about and do not know its source. The hints are worth
remembering.
* * * * *
THE THROAT.--"_Brown's Bronchial Troches_" act directly on the organs
of the voice. They have an extraordinary effect in all disorders of the
throat.
* * * * *
THE APIARY
[Illustration]
KEEP BEES.
The beginning of the new year is a general time of settling accounts and
making resolutions for the future. The head of many a family is overcast
with gloom as he ascertains the true state of his affairs, and perceives
how little he has to show from the past year of toil. His family may
have been industrious in a general way, and yet been consumers only, and
not producers. We knew a farmer's family where there were three
daughters just budding into womanhood. On inquiring of the mother what
she had to sell to clothe her daughters with, she answered, Not a thing.
Have you no butter, eggs, fowls, honey, or bees-wax to sell from this
good farm? No, nothing. These girls were not idle! Oh no. They pounded
the organ, and the result was music as sweet as filing a saw; crocheted,
darned lace, and helped mother. When their father went to town they
asked him to bring them a pair of shoes, a bustle, or a necktie, with no
thought or care. And all the while the neighbors said "he was hard run."
There are few farmers' families that are so situated that they can not
care for a few colonies of bees. They not only need the sweets they
gather, but these industrious insects help to fertilize the bloom of
their orchards and meadows. Nature has appointed this insect, and it
alone, to do this work for her.
Honey can be used in many ways as a substitute for sugar--in canning
fruit, making cookies, and for other culinary purposes.
We would advise all those contemplating bee-keeping to start on a small
scale, if they have had no previous training. Two colonies are plenty,
and then let their knowledge increase in the same ratio as do their
bees. The next thing in order, after purchasing bees, should be a good
standard work on apiculture; and study it well. A person should be full
of theory, and then they are ready for practice. Those who are
energetic, willing to work, intelligent and willing, eager to learn,
observing, persevering, and attentive to their work, will rarely ever
fail in apiculture.
We have heard farmers say that bees will not flourish with the same care
given to other farm stock, and that they have not time to attend to
them. We would recommend to all such to try the experiment of procuring
a colony or two of beautiful Italians, in some good movable frame hive,
and present them to the family, with abundance of bee literature, and
see if they are not taken care of, especially if the almighty dollar
puts in an appearance.
MRS. L. HARRISON.
THE NEW BEES.
Prof. Cook, at the late Michigan Convention of Bee-keepers, spoke in
this wise on the topic of the New Bees: