FOOT NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1506, 25 September 1880, Page 7

FOOT NOTES.

There is no orop so valuable for the renovation of partly exhausted grain lands as clover. As a rule, trees in a warm climate need much mora pruning than they do in a cold one. Potatoes raised on land heavily dressed with manure, saturated with urine, or containing a large quantity of fixed ammonia, will certainly be scabby. It is said that an infallible cure for gapes in chickens is to give them as much kerosene oil as they can swallow at one dose. The official statistics of Michigan report the area in orchards in 1879 as 229,262 acres in apples, and 10,771 in peaches. A second growth of clover ploughed in with the roots of the strong-growing plant will afford nearly as much fertility to the soil as would the first, and the hay crop and manure gained. A teaspoonful of new warm milk turned down the throat will oure chickens of gapes, dislodging the worms, unless they have eaten through. A New Hampshire farmer, who has raised corn successfully for twenty years, tells the Portsmouth Weekly that he gets two-thirds less from hills than from drills 3to 3 J feet apart and plants 3 inches distant hi the row.

An English farmer, ten times previously connoted of cruelty, went away from home a while ago, leaving his cows a whole week without milking, and these poor animals and all the other stock wholly without food. He was fined £2 and costs and ordered to prison for four months.

Half a cup of pure hard-wood ashes finely sifted and mixed with the mash is recommended by a correspondent of the Rural New Yorker as a sure oure for worms in horses— repeating the dose after a day or two, if necessary. Those of the highest quality contain fewer seeds than do the inferior melons. This is generally true of all fruit. A large apple contains fewer seeds than a small one of the same variety ; the luscious pear has fewer seeds, as a rule, than the poorer one ; and the improved grapes have proportionally fewer seeds than the wild grape from which they have been derived.

With desire to assist private gentlemen to dispose of, and private buyers to purchase, horses the bona fide property of non-dealers, the London Live Stock Journal has opened a column to advertisements in which no animal can figure that has not been previously examined and pronounced sound and desirable by the veterinary adviser who superintends the department. A good idea, if well lived up to. We bemoan the loss of fertility through the drainage of the landand the sewage of cities to the ocean. It is incalculable in amount, and seems to be irretrievable and total ; yet a portion of the phosphates, nitrogen and potash, are brought back by the seals and seabirds, in the form of guano, and the seaweeds, and even the fish, are used to restore the wasted fertility of the soil. There is reciprocity between land and sea. The demand for superphosphates has steadily increased in Germany, and especially for those rich ia nitrogen, rather than for plain superphosphates containing no nitrogen, and while at first there was a larger consumption of bone meal than of bone meal superphosphate, latterly the case is reversed, and bone meal treated with acid is in greater demand, because, doubtless, of ita quicker action. Mr CoUinson Hall, near Brentwood, England, who, on thirteen farms or 200 acres each, keeps a dairy for supplying milk to the London market, has found it worth while to incur the expense of providing facilities for keeping running water constantly before his cows in stable.

A notable example of the profits of sheep husbandry, under good management, is the record of a Kentucky flock, of Messrs E. and C. Brown, of fifteen Cotswold ewea, coaling 158 dols in 1866. In ten years, celling wool and male lambs annually, they had realized from wool and sheep 4800 dols, retaining the ewea ; in 1877 their sales were 1500 dols, and 900 dols in 1878, leaving hi 1879 a flock of 290 sheep, worth 2800 dols— over $10,000 in twelve years from an original flock of fifteen head.

Any treatment that checks the vigour of a plant has a tendenoy to increase its blooming. A plant propagated by a cutting or layer has not the vigor of the original seedling plant. This is, no doubt, a correct statement of a general law relating to plants, but hi many oases the decrease in vigour is inappreciable for long periods of time ; in others, oo the contrary, the effect is very prompt. If the roots of the plants are allowed to become pot bound, doubtless they would soon commence to bloom. It is not good luck that makes good crops, but it is good work. Some farmers always have good crops, good stock, and get good prices. It ia because whatever they put their hands to they do well. They have clean fields, good fences, and do good ploughing, cultivating, and Beeding. They farm with brains as well as hands . If other fanners would imitate their examples they would have better crops. Success does not depend so much upon good luck as it does upon good work. Where the bone dust and lime had been put together the largest crop of grass came up, but this was full of sorrel ; where the lime was put not so much grass was obtained, but no eorrel appeared (remarks an experimenter). The lime will do more ia the land the second aDd third years than ib will in the first year, and for particular soils lime is the best manure, and with fallowing will bring the soil into a sweet state.

( IE it is the chief object of the farmer to enrich his land, and that by the growing of clover to tarn in, the greatest good will be gained by ploughing in the first crop when it is in fall bloom and near maturity ; bat if profit to the farm is the object, it ia best to mow the first orop for hay, feed it on. the farm, and apply the manure made to the farm.

To keep sweet potatoes over whiter, so as to use them for raising plants for the spring, it is essential that they should be kept warm and dry ; to this end pack them hi a barrel of dry sand and keep them in a warm place, as in a greenhouse, near a furnace or similar place. The cellar suitable to preserve the common potato, is much to cold and damp for the sweet potato.