The Farm.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 458, 20 January 1882, Page 23

The Farm.

Tomatoes as Food. — Tomatoes, remarks a good authority, are not without some defects as an article of food. They are not, like milk, a perfect diet of them selves and besides, like most other articles of food, they contain some obnoxious qualities. But they need not be thrown aside on that account. Nature has provided us with such sufficient excretory organs that obnoxious matter in our food, if in moderate amount, is readily cast out, and the body is protected against any material injury. Were it not so, we should be obliged to throw out of our dietary many kinds of food now eaten, not only with impunity, but with advantage. Thus red cabbage, cherries and peaches contain prus sic acid, which is a deadly poison when taken in sufficient qtiantity. The very small amount of the poisoning acid these vegetables contain is cast out of the system without any material injury to the person using them. A positive good may actually be derived from the use of food containing some such foreign matter, by way of giving increased, activity and strength to the excretory organs from their exercise in casting such foreign matter from our bodies, previded the quantity is not so great as to overburden them. Since we are all the time liable to take in our food substances the tendency of which is harmful, a good development of efficiency in our excretory organs is necessary to avoid pernicious effects which might otherwise occur. Almost every kind of grain and fruit in use contains more or less things which in a large amount would prove hurtful. Unless we closely study our food, we are taking them in when we little suspect it. A Frenchman not many years ago, discovered a substance in wheat bran, under which the high heat used in baking, dissolved out and spread over the crumbs of bread, of which bran forms a part, and discolours it, and hence the brown stain peculiar to some bread. But from this discovery such bread has not been rejected, but continues accounted as among the most wholesome kinds of food. Bye is seldom used without containing more or less ergot, but the bread is also among the most healthful. Tea contains tannic acid, apples contain malic acid, lemons, and oranges citric acid, no one of which is used either in nutrition or respiration, but they only become objectionable when used excessively. — Leeds Mercury. To Fatten Fowls. — A poultry journal says :— " What a different taste a fine, nicely and quickly fattened fowl has, when served on the table, compared with one which has been forced to scratch for all its living, and then been consigned to the spit in anything but a fine condition for food. Farmers realise the importance of fattening quickly when feeding beeves for the butcher, yet many do not seem to realise the fact that what holds good with that kind of meat is equally good when applied to fowls. Tenderness and juiceness are results of fattening quickly, while mere ordinary flavour and want of tenderness result from letting fowls run until wanted for the table. To enable one to fatten fowls or chicks quickly it is absolutely necessary to give such food as will accomplish the purpose best and to this end we unhesitatingly recommend plenty of milk, in any state, from fresh to thick. This should be fed in connection with a grain diet, for one counteracts any possible deleterious influence in the other. If kept in a darkened place, and fed unsparingly on milk with grain food in proper proportions, you will soon have something choice to set upon your table to your friends, as well as to your family. When milk is used no water is required for fattening fowls. a Colonial Incubatob. — A low-cost incubator, certain in action (says the " Town and Country Journal 1 ') was thus contrived by the ingenious Mr. Lewis, late of New England. A simple circular tin vessel 9 inches deep and 8 inches in diameter, with a tin flange at the bottom like the rim of a hat, 4 inches wide, is aurrounded by circular tin terraces, rising one above the other, and encircling the water-vessel. Each terrace, in which the eggs are laid — on soil from an old wood-heap — is 2 in. deep. The tin vessel stands on a simple quarter-inch tripod — 6 inches high, under which iB a lamp. The vessel containing the kerosene oil is a simple shallow tin, 4 in. square and 2 in. deep, provided with a burner that requires no chimney. The whole concern is covered with a tin cover with a hole in front, and a little chimney at the top. The water for the first ten days, must be 110 degrees to maintain a heat in terraces of 98 degrees. Particular attention for the first ten days must be paid to this, afterwarda a few degrees lower or higher for a short time will not kill the developing chicks. The apparatus should be kept from a draught, and each morning, while the lamp is being trimmed and the water-vessel replenished, the eggs should be dipped in a bowl of warm water about 98 deg., and allowed to float about for five minutes, and then not dried, but put back wet into the terraces. The terraces may contain 56 eggs, the water- vessel containing about a gallon of water. The amount of oil consumed in three weeks will not exceed a pint. A shallow box with sloping roof lined with a piece of sheepskin. Under this the little chickens will nestle. Feed with oatmeal, groats, rice, crumbs, cracked corn, &c. Mr. Lewis hatched out seven land-rail eggs in 14 days, and 49 out of 56 hen-eggs hatched out all right in the first trial of the above arrangement. In consequence of elaborate machines portrayed in the English Graphic or other illustrated paper, readers are notified of this cheap colonial process, procurable of, any tinsmith, at the cost of £1 or thereabouts. Gekse. — Geese as the rule, are not highly favoured by farmers. After the manner of rabbits, they damage as they consume by rendering the herbage unpalatable for cattle and sheep. On a common, or rough, marshy land, their breeding is, however, very desirable, as they undoubtedly pay well for the attention they receive in their earliest days, requiring but little supervision, and giving very little trouble after they have been once fairly started. The gosling hatch ing may almost be regarded as over. Now and again I observe excellent broods, though the late cold winds and sharp frosty nights cut off many which were not duly protected when they left the nest. During the next three or four weeks we shall ccc the little strangers wandering slowly about some sheltered orchard or grass-plat, biting at the grass, eating a little soft natal, tipping water, and then stretch-

ing themselves on the grass ; and after a handful of dry grain, oft they go to stream or pool, not to put in an appearance nntil the even* ing. In spite of all the fuss they make, goslings are contented birds — rising up to eat, and after their meal and draught, throwing them* selves lazily on the ground. All this is conducive to progress, and I doubt if any live stock will pay better than geese on rough land. Is it " a green goose " that is wanted at Michaelmas 1 There is what you want without trouble or expense ; and if fat and weight are demanded about Christmas, a month's feeding, with little labour, and no great outlay, will bring about the change. Tempora mutantur I remember when I could buy a goose for 45., but we should be sorry to sell even a green goose at that price nowadays. Goose feathers, again, are a consideration, even in these days of springs and hair, the number of oldfashioned folk who still believe in feather beds is not trifling, and so the process of " plucking " is yet carried on somewhat extensively on the farms where geese are patronised. I maintain that under certain circumstances a flock of geese is most disirable, and that a goose is a very useful bird. Ornamental it cannot well be remunerative it should prove, even though on good land it should be* conspicuous by its absence. Moreover, geese often prove a worry to cattle during the winter months if they have the run of the straw yard. This fact coupled with the other drawback of spoiling herbage, may be considered the principal objection to geese as the live stock of the farm.