Newspapers / The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, … / Dec. 8, 1886, edition 1 / Page 2
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1886. 'HE PEOGRESSIYE FABMER, v f (EorvcsiunuU-ncc. OUR COUNTRY ROADS. How They Should be Worked Some- thing about Sassafras. Editor Progressive Farmer: Glad to see you taking an interest in the improvement of our public roads. Gad to know, that papers like the Salisbury Watchman and Wilmington Star are y$x king up this late in the evening uf the 19th ceii-' tury and are realzing that some thingniust be doilre with our public roads. It is waste of time to argue that good roadsare a benefit todl. The question is: how are we to get good roads? The answer is, the State must make them. How should the State make them? is the question of the hour. As money represents labor and as labor makes all things that can be made by man, therefore, it is necessary for the State to raise the money by which our public roads are made and kept in repair. There are only three ways by which the State can raise the money: 1st. By taxation on labor. 2nd. By taxation on labor and property. 3rd. By taxation on properly. The first (tax on labor) is the present mode in North Carolina. Jt provides for only human labor to work the roads with and corn pels said labor to furnish the implements for working the roads. The over seers are compelled to be overseers, and they only demand of unwilling labor to do enough to keep them from the clutches of the law. ''You can take a horse to water but you cannot make him drink." You can force labor to appear on the roads so many days in the year, but you cannot make roads With this system. The most ignorant laborer under stands that property is enhanced in value by good roads, and although said laborer may live on property enhanced in value by good roads roads made good by his labor, he knows the land lord can say depart and he departeth. His work remains, but he cannot enjoy it. The country laborers know there is something wrong in a system that throws the entire burden of keeping up the public roads upon them. Property says we pay all the other expenses of the government. Let us see. There are 120,000 country laborers ki this State liable to road duty, liable to sixr days work,' valued by the State at one dollar per day, making a tax on labor for roatls of $720,000 nearly $100,000 more than all the other expenses of the State government, and yet labor pays a part of the expenses that property claims to pay. Is it any wonder that this unjust system is a failure? The second (tax on labor and property) is more fair and efficient than the first. It is the law in force in Mecklenburg county. Labor re cognizing that property is willing to bear its part of the burden,1 does better work than ever beforehand does said work more cheerfully, because property bears its part of the tax and furnishes material by which the roads can be improved. The third (tax on property) is the plan 'by which the streets in our towns and cities are made and kept in repair. While, I never expect to live td see it applied to our country roads, I am satisfied it is the best and chUapesfwuy of keeping up our public lxiads. ' It is not worth arguing a question so far in the future: ; ' ' . The newspapers that only talk of the benefits of good roads remind me of a meeting (of . farmers) I once attended. A committee was appoint ed to build or rent a hall for said farmers to meet in. I was appointed one of the committee. I found no money was provided to build or rent said hall. P resigned. Will not the newspapers discuss the way to get the money to improve our roads? Get the money and we will have good roads. I have been t overseer, and, with only labor at my command, I felt, like other overseers, that I was forced, the labor was forced and the task of making a good road was nearly as bad as , building the hall (with no means provided) referred to 'above! ' ' ' V ' , ; '' ' ' . , ,'t ' Mr. G. M. j Yoder in an article, "To eradicate Sassafras," (Progres sive Farmer, Nov. 24th) states that heavy applications of stable manure will destroy sassafras. "f Sassafras indicates that the soil is deficient 'in .ammonia. It is the ammonia of the stahl e manure that d est roy s i t. I have seen it destroyed by heavy applications of old fashioned Peru- i I -. - : i - i vianVruano. Should any of your. readerVtry Ir. Yoder' s plan, they shouldee tto it that the? stable manure is fresh1 and stron-pr they will be disappointed. If they could get a fertilizer containing as high per cent. f ammonia as the Peruvian guano sold before the war, they would fiJd it equally as efficient. Notes from Enderly. ARMERS' CONVEN' s Can We Manage Our Affairs - Some Plain Words from a Hain-Spqken Man. Editor Progressive Farmer : I have watched the proceedings of the South Carolina Farmer's Con vention with mubh interest from its beginning, butim especially pleased to see the stared ythejsare taking ,in their demandsibr justice at the hands of the geural assembly. North Carolina needs such an organization, can have it and must have it if they expect proper recog n:tion from qur law makers. Take our Board of Agriculture and you will find that dt is every where unpopular with the people. Why? There are several causes. A ll trades and professions are organ- z.d except the agriculturists. All those prey on the farmer and are doing all they can to -prevent his protecting himself, either. by organi zation or by State aid; ahd(when the State institutes a Department of Agriculture, there must be a direct tax on something to meet it, so as not to draw any moneys out of the common treasury. Why this dis crimination? Do the farmers pay no taxes? Are they entitled to no State aid? Does agriculture enter into the industries of North Caro lina? All these and manv more questions present themselves to our minds, and why should we all not have equal justice? I believe that the fertilizer tax is a just one and one that ought to be imposed, .but just as other taxes. The system of taxation and appro priations we could make out with, but the administration of the depart ment is largely in the hands of those who are not agriculturists. Indeed, not one of the officers of the" Depart ment is a practical agriculturist and very few members of the Hoard are strictly farmers. -Why is tins? Well, one says the fanners have not the ability to manage their own affairs, so we must have lawyers, doctors, colonels,1 honorables, merchants. &c, &c, to manage the Department and administer agricultural lore to the farmer, thereby insulting their man hood, and the result is that the farmers neither, co-operate with, advise nor have anything to do with the Department, except to cast slurs ! at its administration. t; "The farmers ought to keep silence, it will hurt some political party" says some p ditical sage.. Suppose a farmer without . legal attainments were to attempt to ad minister justice on the Superior -or Supreme Court bench, what a cry of derision would go up from the bar. Or suppose him to meet in the medi cal conventions to discuss physics? Why, every sensible man. would at once brand him as a presumptuous ignoramus, and they would be about right, but not more so than some of those who attempt to man age our Board of Agriculture and Agricultural Societies, wTho know nothing of and care less for the interests of the farmers. I say, Mr. Ed i to r, a way with all su e h a n d gi v e every business and profession the management of its own affairs, and we will see better times, more har mony, and each profession will then be responsible for its own cause. Till then, adieu prosperity. I hope you will induce the farmers of the State to meet in Convention at Raleigh some time in ; January and give expression to their views to the legislature. Call the Convention ; if only three farmers come, possibly we can have five two years hence. ! ' Respectfully, ' Farmer. WHITE OR YELLOW CORN. The preference for either white or yellow corn is wholly a matter of taste. Yellow corn , has generally rather more oil, and is preferable for fattening, while white corn meal is better for working horses and grow ing stock. The Western : or Dent corn is less hearty than' our Eastern Flint , varieties. It has a greater proportion of husk, does riot weigh so much per bushel . and,', is worth less per pound. 1 - " &lVE Tilt HORSES SOME LIBERTY". Horses kept in stables t will be all the better for a run in the barnyard an hour every day, where they will ri bt "on ly exercise"," ' but r61 1 i ri th e straw and cjean themselves. They may heed some extra grooming but their improved condition under this management wiH repay it. PAPER FOR WARMTH. .There is no cheaper mode of keep ings out cold than by the use of papier, provided it is kept dry. It is impervious to wind, and two or threeV thicknesses placed between two blankets or even sheets, will preserve as many spaces of confined air, wuiich is even a better shield from 'cold. Tarred paper can be obtained quite cheaply, and is better for battening sheds and stables than are tle boards generally used for this pjirpose. BLANKETING HORSES IN STABLES. After hard driving or heavy work cause the sweat to start, blanket ing hforses is necessary to prevent them from catching cold while becoming dry. At other times a horse left with his natural covering of hair will need no other in the stable. If the practice of blanketing in tfie stable is begun with the first cold weather, it must be continued all Winter, with additional danger thrft the horse will take cold when ever brought .out for work or exer cise. I HORSE AND P1U MANURE. Although pig manure from the usual grain ration given to hogs is generally very rich, yet it is slow to ferment. Horse manure, on the contrary, heats too rapidly, and is liable to firefang. It is often a good plan to have pigs and horses kept near each other so that the manure which each makes may be piled with the other. Dry horse manure makes a good litter for pigs where straw is scarce, but while it is used as bedding pigs will not, unless con fined so they cannot do otherwise, mix their own excrement with it. RYE FEED. In looking for cheap grain feed rye is not so likely to be forgotten. It is almost the only nutritious con centrated feed that can be bought for less than one cent per pound. The drawback on rye is that it may be affected with ergot, and thus be unsuitable to animals bearing young. Hut it is excellent for almost every other kind of stbek, and especially for young animals' which it may be desired to get into heat for the pur pose of inducing 'earlier 'breeding. Ihe action of the ergot in ''stimulat ing the generative organs into activ ity is then just what is wished. GRINDING CORN, IN THE EAR. It is difficult to grind corn and cob. thus early and make fine meal. The cob breaks up in chunks and cannot be crushed to powder. But by adding one-half in bulk of oats or barley, this difficulty may be ob viated.,, The mixture also makes a better feed than corn and cob alone. There is some nutriment in the cob, but the chief advantage in grinding it with the corn is-to make the meal less concentrated. It is a fact that stock suddenly changed from poor feed to a -diet , of corn meal often becomes cloyed, loses its appetite and will not gain so much as on an an equal amount of corn and cob meal. ; OLD TURKEYS FOR BREEDERS. Onei reason why so many have poor success in raising , turkeys is because they breed from ; immature birds. The chjeksare not so hardy, cannot , grow . to . a large size ; and gradually run out. Yoiing turkey hens generally give more eggs than older birds but those of the latter are ; most valuable. The , gobbler should be two years old at least, and three or four would be better. By this age, if a good breed, he wil have attained an enormous size, and probably, bring an extra j price, in markets where size is thought more important than anything else. This is the season for killing turkeys and to be successful, another, year the best should be;kept for breeders. . DEFICIENCES IN MANURE. It is customary to speak of manure from the barnyard or stable as the standard, and many good .farmers say if they could get plenty of, that they would use no other. But there is great variation in stable manure. It generally contains something of everything that the plant needs; but the fkcM that withj itT gram grown ?en5rnifus yields otraw with deficieptifaeads shows that it sometimes lacks in the mineral ele ment most'essbhtial to successful pro duction of grain. This is very apt to be the case where grain or milk have been sold from- the farm for a long series of years, and only straw arid hay used ' as food for stock. Clover hay makes rich manurealone. Other hay needs grain feed with it, LARGE AND SMALL BREEDS. Where the cheap production of meat is an object the advantage of the larger breed is obvious. In each animal some waste is required to supply the-nervous energy, and the smaller they are, the greater the loss for a given weight. Animals of the same kind consume very nearly in proportion to their weight, lnus the large, coarse wooled sheep may eat twice as much as a Merino only one-half its weight. But it will add more than twice as much fat and flesh, as it does not waste any more than the smaller sheep. Very young animals are an exception to this rule of the larger gaining most rap idly. A litter of pigs weighing per haps sixty pounds will double in weight very quickly if well fed. ANNUAL GROWTH OF TREES. So long as a tree dives it adds something, if only a little, to its growth! "While young the annual extension of the shoots will often be two feet or more, but asextension proceeds the number of shoots to which the sap is diverted is greatly increased, thus lessening theamount to each and reducing growth. When apple trees make a yearly growth often to fifteen inches it is as much as is consistent with much fruitful ness. On old neglected trees an annual growth of two or three inches and sometimes of only an inch, per year will be made. This is nature's call for manure and better cultiva tion. In manuring old trees be sure and give plenty of mineral fer tilizers, especially potash and phos phate, as these are needed in mak ing fruit. Most of the material for leaves and twrigs is carbon, which the tree can get from the atmos phere. RIPENING CREAM. ' How many persons really under stand the true meaning of what is called ripening cream? It used, to be supposed that each microscopic globule of fat was encased with a caseous membrane, and that onlv souring to the verge of decay .would set these fat globules free. Later investigations have shown that this was fallacy. The butter globules are entirely free, and , held in the water of the milk just as the caseous constituents are. The fat is lighter than water and constantly seeks to rise to the surface. Hence the rip ening of the cream-is more a ques tion of temperature than anything else. The cream need not be said to cause the clinging together of ; the fat globules, but cream may stand for a certain time with frequent stir rings to bring the whole into a hom ogeneous state, in order that the; sep aration may be as, simultaneous as possible. If slightly sour, no harm is done in , fact, it assists in the better and more complete separation of the butter but the cream should never be allowed to pass the first stages of, acidity, else the butter globules may be themselves attacked. Again to develop flavor ' the fat must come into perfect contact with the oxygen of pure air, for only in this way can the change be proper ly made. , The fat absorbs oxygen, and whon the proper quantity is absorbed unless there is a tint in the air and if so, this tint will betaken up and vitiate the butter and of course reduce the selling price. Farm, Field and Stockman. ; . . MAKES AN ANGEL OF A DYSPEP TIC. So here is a truly delicious secret all the way from Yorkshire, in the way of a breakfast cake which will transform the driest dyspeptic into a smiling angel. This secret cake may also serve for lunch or tea. Roll rich puff paste into rounds the size of the breakfast plate, and half an inch in thickness;, strew thickly over one pound , of currants, with a little candied lemon, chopped, which has been most thoroughly steeped in rum or brandy ; over this place another round of pasted unite5 it closely round." Cut into quarters, but leave them close together and bake im mediately .without separat ing the quarters,, serving either , hot or cold. -JV: ' Y. Evening Post. h MANAGEMENT OF BREEDl V I would now draw attention r "A Practical Farmer" in the cultural Gazette,) to the inn.nw subject of the period , t tant tation. Any abuse to the T maljust at this time means a vaUl". serious loss to the owner. A,,1 the numerous modes of ahu.01'" note: M 1. Improper dieting. 2. Insufficient food. 3. Want of regular exeivie. 4. Too much crowdingand k nock ing about when close to laml,inr 5. Over feeding before lam bin,', 6. Dogging or starting CWl.N careless shepherd. 1 refer to those abuses hecau. j think that on the five course shift we are able to avoid the occunviuv of most of them entirely, wheivas under the four course the matter Vs not so simple. To begin with. I would rive it a my opinion that the most (-ritual time in intra-uterine life isi when the ewe in about half gone into lamb. I think that at that period ewes ai more liable to go wrong if subjected to abuse either of food or otherwise than at any period of their interest ing condition. A ewe which has taken the ram the last week of Sep tember is half gone about the sec ond week in December; at that time on the five course, the ewes are on grass, receiving, if necessary a few turnips laid down daily in the field. I should, myself, prefer a lit tle bran, oats and cake to roots hut my objection at this important time is the crowding of ewes around cake boxes. A greedy ewe will rush iroiii one box to another, kicking against her neighbors, and twisting her body about in a way not calculated to have good effect on her after wards. I should therefore prefer that about a week before half-time the ewes were gradually brought on turnips getting just enough to do them good and avoid all gorging. When scarcity of grass indicates that the time has arrived for going on turnips I would ad vise that the ewes to be fed in such a manner that their health and condition be mantained and kqn regular. The demand upon the ewe increases as the fcetus grows, therefore the stock-master must keep pace with the necessities of thecase. I never used my in-lamb ewes as cleaners up after fattening sheep, and never will. I believe the ewes to be not only the most valuable item of the farm, but at this period the most susceptible of injury from unsuitable provender. Good hay or chaff is necessary at this time; that every one knows. As lambing approaches you want carefully to avoid too high condition and yet guard against poverty. It I think my ewes' too fleshy, I rat her stint them than otherwise for about a week before lambing. To any which are undoubtedly too fat I give ajdose of opening medicine, may be three days before we expect them to lamb; it reduces the liability to imflammation and straining. After the ewe has quite recovered from the effects of lambing and is out of danger, I believe the better you feed the better results you will have in the lamb. One great difficulty I had with my shepherd at first was to keep him from over feeding the ewe from the time she had recovered from what I would call the labor. No sooner had she satisfied herself with her. lamb than he began to give all hlanner of good things. Inis is a great error (and my herd saw it.) Until six or seven days are over I do not think the danger is past. You don't want a bursting udder for two newly born lambs much less for -one ; you only cause uneasiness to the ewe, and it y()U don't hand-milk in such a case the ewe may go in the wrong m that direction. Ewes treated on this sys tem will drop the finest ofthelambs. big and strong and healthy, a goo color, full of firm flesh, able to stanjj exposure almost at once yo" NN 1 nlos ami no nursing to do, nor warming at the 4U.,,; rat ividv sneaKui-, your ewes willgetovertheirtroni'ie. easily, and your skin buyer will nn find his presence required as nuu " as when he visited you in the ioi course days. An Australian has invented an electrical machine gun whit -n claims is capable of firing 120ruiinu "every few seconds" from an 1 - t.inn anil in anv direction. Xl. , ienced officers have, recommcnut the apparatus. ' 1
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 8, 1886, edition 1
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