SOME USEFUL HINTS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 23, Issue 5, 19 January 1912, Page 8

SOME USEFUL HINTS.

The oftener carpets are shaken the long#* they wear: the dust cute the fibre of woven goods. Any one who has been scalded by steam, -should be taken to a warm room and the scalded parts drenched by cold water. Galvanised iron pails for drinking watei should not be used. The zinc coating is readily acted upon by the water, forming ? poisonous oxide of zino. SALT FOR DAIRY COWS. . Many dairymen neglect to give salt to their cows, considering it a luxury and of no importance as a food. Perhaps It is not a food in the legitimate sense of the word Vet it is a most valuable constituent oi foods for milk. The gastric juices of the cow's stomach, of which a great amount is elaborated, hydrochloric acid is an important constituent of, and can only be obtained from, salt. A milk cow entirely deprived o! salt cannot digest her food. All the other digestive fluids of the system contain salt or I -jne of its constituents. Salt is almost as necessary to all herbivorous animals as food proper. CARE OF YOUNG ANIMALS. Extremes are never profitable in stock growing. Many colts that should make fine horses are spoiled. Somq are pampered, groomed and kept blanketed in close stalls until they are ruined for want of exercise Such can never make fully developed horses with rugged constitutions and stamina. They make about as good horses for work as dudes would make men for rail splitters. On the other hand the half starved colt or calf exposed to the storms of winter will never make a well developed animal. But if it gels through with a sound constitution it will be a better animal than the pampered one. With a colt a medium course is best They should have abundant air and exercise with bone and muscle producing food rather than that which is fattening. EUROPE IN AFRICA. France's possessions in Africa amountto 7,400,000 square kilometers, peopled with 24,000,000 inhabitants. England holds sway in Africa, including Egypt, over 5,000,000 square kilometers, with inhabitants to the number of 32,000,000. ■ Germany’s possessions in the Dark Coninent amount to 2,300,000 square kilometers A land, on which are located 7,800,000 inhabitants. Little Portugal 1 has managed to get control of 2,200,000 square kilometers of African land, and its rale extends over a population there of 10,000,000 people. Italy has the smallest slice of the Dark Continent, her possessions in land amounting to only 1,2150,000 square kilometers, and the number of inhabitants being a little over 5,100.000 souls. ! WAYSIDE GLEANINGS. New Yorkers every year spend 84,200,000 for umbrellas. Nine-tenths of Indiana's forests hate been . cut down. v Twenty-three American states now admit women to practice at the bar. A ton and a half of bread is eaten every day in Girard College, Philadelphia. 1 The largest state prison in tbe United States is claimed to be that of Jeftersou City, Mo, ' Indian elephants cannot live in Central Africa, the home of a larger and more hardy species. The Japanese word for farewell means "i! it must be so,” and the Chinese say, "Go away slowly.” Farm lands in the United, States, taking I tbe country as a whole, occupy only 289 I acres in every 1,000. I Cremation flourishes in Japan. Tokio has six crematories, in which the bodies of at II least one-third of the dead ate burned Bull fighting has been abolished in the City of Mexico, and the arena where the fights took place has been cut up into building lots and sold to speculators. A German labour editor was fined recently fur publishing the list of workmen killed in a mine disaster alongside of the amounts distributed as dividends among tbe owners of the mines. EXHAUSTION OF SOIL. There is no country in the world-—at least no civilized one—where the exhaustion of the soil (says a writer in Industry ) is so dttle considered as in the United States. Such exhaustion is what may be called a tremendous fact* in national economicsone that has engaged the attention of scientific men and economists in all countries, hut has never become a subject of popular consideration, except in a few places where, as Malthas says, 'population presses on subsistence.’ The exhaustion of tbe soil is measurable or predictable from the amount of solid matter removed from it in the way of crops. As a general rule, the effect Is as | the dry weight of whatever is grown, the water sot being counted. When stalks and leaves, as well as seeds, are removed, as in the case of tobacco or maize culture, exhaustion goes on faster. There are also certain kinds of crops that create chemical exhaustion, but as a rule it is a problem 01 weight. Root crops, such as turnips, beets, potatoes and so on, seem heavy, bat are not so if tbe water is not counted. Wheat, barley, oats and other grain are not heavy crops if the straw is not removed, and in this fact the western method of -wheat growing has a great advantage. Under present methods of harvesting not much is taken from the ground except the clear grain. A feature of the lands of this coast tbatfavours their maintenance is in thedepth of tbe soil. ’ This varies as in other countries, but no- . where else is there such a depth as on the sedimentary lands of the large valleys of the Pacific slope. Ip the San Joaquin, Sacramento and other valleys the soil is from two 1 10 twenty feet in depth—in some places ; much more—and no exhaustion is possible, except of the surface, the deposits being great beds rather than. soil. The uplands have, as a rule, rich soil, but when the covering of natural grass is destroyed and cultivation begins there is set up a rapid waste, especially on steep hill lands, by water erosion, and then exhaustion begins. The fertility of soil is not, as is often supposed, a fixed quantity and quality of the ground; a portion is drawn from the atmosphere in vegetable growth, so the seed, as in the case of wheat, may be removed, and tbe straw compensate for the crop. The deep soil formed on the tops of the hills in California is a result 01 cumulative vegetable growth. Grass and other perennial growths make soil much faster than timber growth; hence in woodeti countries rich or deep soil is seldom found on hills or steep lands where the leaves are blown away and find their way into valleys. The nature and main- . tenance Of soils is a subject of vastly greater Importance than botanical classification, geology and agood many other things taught in our schools and colleges, one easy to understand and interesting to every one. , In some of the western states—Michigan for I t n e—and in them alone, so far as we know, are experimental laboratories for ascertaining facts pertaining to agriculture.