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Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 361, 29 March 1871, Page 7

To preserve meadows in their productiveness it is necessary to harrow them every second autumn, apply top-dTessings, •and roll them. All lands on which clovers •or the grasses are grown, must eilher have lime in them naturally, or it must be naturally supplied. '." It matters little whether it be supplied in the form of stone lime, •oyster-shell lime, or marl. No lands can be preserved in a high state of fertility, Unless clover and the grasses are cultivated in the 'course of rotation. Clover, as well as other grasses, intended for hay, should foe mown when in bloom. -Burned clay ashes are true farmers' friends OB heavy land ; tiey descend gradually into the subsoil beneath the ploughed lands, fertilising it, and rendering it more porous and acceptable to the roots of our plants, Twenty years of experience have showti that nothing: pays better than burning, siiff clay in dry wea-ther, especially where it is mixed with stones. From a state poisonous-to plants, it passes, by burning, into a fruitful condition. Worthless . pastures, ploughed lightly And burned become fruitful and productive fields/ How. remarkable is the change, produced in stiff clays by burning. Cold, wety 1 heavy* and adhesive or slipberyj according- to weather, they at once. become friable, Bon-ajih«sivo, warm, and

The quantity of sugar from beet varies with soil, climate, and variety. Small r«ors averaging- 31b. weight, grown on unmanured land, have been found to produce more sugar than heavier roots grown on wpll-manured ground; If the . roots are grown oft brackish land the sug ar will not cryatallisß. An Auckland paper says that, during' the past few months, Mr G. White has been elaborating 1 an invention for preparing New Zealand flax upon a new principle. The precise construction of the machine is not given. The length of the machine is 19in., and the width -lit. ; it is practically a hand machine, an£ may be worked by a settler without the expense of obtaining- a large running* gea,r and motive power. The inventor claims as its special advantages that it. removes all the vegetable and gummy matter at once, and thus prevents the necessity for much scutching and bleaching- ; that the fibre is split up into much finer filmnents than by any known machine, while it is neither cut nor injured in any way ; and that the machines are more durable and less liable to get out of order than any other invention. After securing a patent, Mr White intends, we believe, to commence the manufacture of flax machinery, and estima.es that he will be able to supply machines made on this principle at L 25 each. It is generally believed that sheep drink but little, and that pasturage, however arid, will suffice for them. This is altogether a fallacy. A sheep on dry food will consume at least a gallon of water per day, if freely within its reach. Moreover, experiments recently made in France hnve proved that a sheep cannot live beyond 14 days without water, that a horse may live for 25 days without solid food, merely drinking water, and that he can live only five days when consuming solid food without drinking. After using solid aliment for 10 days, with an insufficient quantity of water, the stomach becomes absolutely worn out. A horse which bad been deprived of water for three days has been known to have drunk 11 gallons in three minutes. The great difficulty in making good bnttpr in hot weather arises more from the heated and feverish condition of the animal which produced the milk, than directly from the heat of thfc atmosphere acting on the cream. What is wanted is a~ cowcooler quite as much as a place lor cooling the milk. When a cow runs in an open pas'ure, where the sun falls on her and the flies tease her all day, the animal bacomes feverish, and all the care in the world will not prevent her milk from going wrong. During" such vpry hot weather the true policy is to keep the cows through midday in cool shady places. If in a shed, sprinkle the floor with saw-dust, wet with dilute carbolic acid. This will rid them of flies. As to cooling the milk, a good cooler can be made with a coil cf half-inch lead tube in a common wash tub, where ice is procurable. Ice is put in the tub, jnd the milk is run through the coil. A most efficient a»ent for the destruction of weeds in walks, and one that is not expensive, can be made by boiling four Dounds of arsenic and eight pounds of soda ;n twelve gallons of water. To every gallon. of this boiling mixture three gallons if cold water should be added, and the iquor carefully sprinkled over the walks ivhile it is yet warm. It, is desirable to io this in fine weather, and when the walks ire dry, so that the weeds and weed seeds nay have the full benefit of the application. 3are must be taken not to let any of the iquid fall on the leaves -or reach the root )f any plant it is not desired to kill. In :wenty-four hours after the poison is put >n the walks every weed will be killed ; md if it be once thoroughly done, it will ceep the walks clean through the whole season. How to Secure Good Oats for Seed. — A :orrepondent of the ' Country Gentleman ' , a y S : — " Place you oats in a heap on the niddle of the thrashing floor, on the end hat the wind blows to. Get yon a milkng stool and a small scoop — your wife's lour scoop will do— and throw the oats, vith a light turn of the wrist, to the other ?nd of the floor, against a gentle wind. A ittle practice will soon enable you to throw t in a half circle and at the same distance. Sweep off now and then, if you have much, he utmost circle for seed, the light oats for feed, and the weed seed to burn. You will now have seed oats worthy to sow, svithout buying at 5 dol per bushel. I have seen oats grow in Sweden Tin til I ivas forty years old, but I never saw a beavy crop where the seed was not selected as aliove." Mr Mechi records in the 'Times,' for bhe information of towns end cities which bave not yet utilised their sewage' the most successful and perfect instance he bas hitherto seen. The farm of Mr W. Hope, at Hornchurch, three and a half miles from Romford, Essex, receives the whole of the available sewage of that town, jontaining about 8000 inhabitants. The Farm consists of 121 acres of light and poor gravelly soil, which had previously •uined several tenants, anct the land has been so arranged that while the flow of the sewage of the town is sufficiently applied there is no .scouring*;, but an easy and Gradual distribution over every portion of the land. All the sewage is absorbed by she soil, and passes through it to the irainp, issuing from them as clear as any jump water. Formerely three men and two boys were employed on the farm ; iow -'the number has been increased to torty with 16 horses. The crops are moruioufs and frequent, and the minimum mine of L2O per acre, and, as many are )erfected ia from two to three uiuuihs, the ;otal value is ver}' considerable. Thus within twelve months a wretchedly poor 7 arm has been converted into a most uxuriant garden, its fertility ever inoreasng, multiplying food and the employ men t >f labor concurrently, and extracting* a Money value from that, which i« now, in 100 many castes, poisoning our streams*

In the top dressing- of meadows with compost, we are adding to the soiVtaisins 1 it and inviting the 'roots of the grass tipward thns thickening the sodj. This is most precious of manures — -this thick mat of roots and compost. It will prolong the meadows, and add to the production of grain ploughed. On a gravelly soil this compost will be improved if one of the principal ingredients is clay; There are some farmers so addicted to the old style of carrying on a farm that it would seem that they preferred failing, in the orderly-, old fashioned way, tosucceeiinsr by the means of any new-fangled "book forming." One is reminded oi Moliere's apothecary, wiio thus eulogises a physician :— " It. is a positive pleasure to be that man's patient-; and for me, I would rather die of his remedies than recover by any other body' medicines. For, whatever may be the result, that at least, is certain be is always in order, and if you die under his treatment, your heirs have nothing to reproach you with; all, with him, is seeundem artem" You will see these ( old style farmers bending their backs over har.l labor that a modern machine would do for them ten times as rapidly and far better. But they cannot see it. They sneer at improvements and consider those who use them as " wonderful afraid of hard work." It is safe to say that " their beads never save their heels." They jog on through life, stiffene-l and broken clown with hard and neerlless work, and fancy there is a great merit in it. " They are) not too good to do as their fathers did before them." Preservation of Eo'o 1 ?. — Egg preserving has always been a subject of domestic interest in this country since puddings at Christmas had been a national institution. The nearest approach, we are informed, to perfe-t preservation of eggs is accomplished by placing a few at a time in a wire basket (an ox muzzle will do), and plunging them into a kettle of actively boiling water for a few seconds, say while one can count twenty rapidly. Ft is well to raise the basket once or twice and lower it suddenly in the water, so that the eggs shall float up and settle back again into a changed position. This surrounds the eggs ney the shell with a film of coagulated albumen, which is perfectly air-tight. I have kept bees a good many years, and wish to give you some reflections, the result of my observations and experience. Nive3, whether straw, box, or any kind of patent, should not be set nearer to each other than about four feet, nor higher from the ground than one foot. It will then be more convenient to work among them, and young" queens will he less liable to mistake their homes and be lost. They should be sheltered from storms and the sun. Every hive should be raised from its bottom board once or twice a month during tho working season, that any moth-worms found there may be destroyed. The bee moth is the great pest of the apiary, when the bee keeper is careless and slovenly. It is particularly injurious to weak stocks, and such should be more frequently examined, and the worms destroyed. I think bee-keeping is a paying business^ if carried on right. Hut hardly one farmer in a hundred takes proper care of his bees. Tliat is the reason they lose their stocks, and lead them to say bees are unprofitable. If I had a thousand stands of bees I would bid farming good-bye, for I am satisfied f could tlu>n make money, and have easy work. Perhaps bee- keepers should be glad that till men do not like bees, for if they did we could not get sixpence a pound for our honey, there would be so much made. I sold 8001 b. last season, at one shilling a pound, besides havina; as much as the family could use. I have three kinds of patent hives — Keith's, Beard's, and Van Zimmerman's — and like them very well. Patentees should furnish cuts of their hives, as we could then better understand the description of their inventions, and form some opinion of their value. — A. j. Brundige, in the ' Bee Journal.' " Calcaria " writes to the editor of the ' Journal of Horticulture ' informing him respecting 1 the results of some experiments in potatoe-pla&fing. A neighbor of " Calcaria," whom he calis " B." as well as " Calcarias," invested respectively in a hundredweigh of Paterson's Victorian potatoes. Tuey were very large, so " B." decided to cut his in two, buc " Calcaria " determined to plant his whole. The cut and uncut sets were planted in the same field side by side, and equally manured. It was a verj long field, and, as the uncut sets were sufficient to plant one row, of course the cut sets were sufficient to plant two. The rows of uncut sets yielded Bcwt., and the two rows of cut sets only 9cvvt. of crop. "Calcaria" conclndes, therefoi^ that by cutting his sets, instead of buying another hundredweight to plant in the second row, that " B." lost 9cwt. of potatoes, or the sum of 40s , calculating them at ss. per cwt., and allowing for the extra hundi'ed weight for sets. This is a very important matter to food- producers, and ought to be satisfactorily settled by i experiments on a larga scale, for, should " Calcaria's " views be proved correct, they will revolutionise pota'oe-cu'lture all over the world. Against the statement of "Calcaria,'' howevrer> we must place the statement of another correspondent of the journal, Mr R. L. BradshaW, who writes ;as follows: — "Having obtained a fine bovinian potatoe (weight lib), I cut about tWo-thirds of it into fourteen gets, and planted them on the 23rd March. As the rest of the potatoe showed no eyes, I exposed it to a good bottom heat; by the 2nd of April ie had sent out five vigorous shoots. I then Cut it into as many sets, and planted them, having previously manured the ground well, and covered it With an inch of sand. I took up the crop Oct. 20, when I had a yield of 1331 b .; thirteen roots weighing together lll^lb., one of these weighing 131 b.; eleven potatoes weighed- 271b.. including one 41b weight. These potatoes are most excellent for table use." . ,-\

The 'direction in wtufh plants' twine is nor a direct result of the; position of the enn in fejjArd to them ; the French bean turns from right to l«ft ; the hop from left to right, and the common brvony either American agfictilturai journals say that the farmers in that country are fully agretd to regard it as conclusively proved that in planting potatoes no seeding is so good as the whole tubers. People often inquire whether (here in any fertilising property in coal ashes. There probably is to some extent-, as they contain a small quantity of potash; but the principal good to be derived from the use of ashes is the mechanical effect they produce in giving lightness to heavy clay soils. Some gardners contend that ashes used in radish beds p;ive that crisp, brittle quality which is so much desired in these vegetables. Guano should be handled with gloves* Many cases of poisoning have occurred from the neglect of this precaution. It seems a pity to see a young man in these days falling into suoh a miserable beaten track; but I have known a whole family of sons, not twenty miles from a great city who have begun their farmingdays with just these principles. There is enterprise all round them, but they are staiionary. If you know such a family, induce them, by any argument you can, to take a good agricultural paper. Don't give them one, for the chances are small of their reading it. But if you can induce them to pay the money down ior it, (hey will then feel anxious ro get their moneys worth out of it. There is nothing to brighten a dark room like bringing a lighted lamp in to itSo a live newspaper is the best thing to wake up a sleepy head on the subject. — J. E. MC., in "Albany Country Gentleman.'