Part 7

ANSWER.--We know of no way the thing can be done unless a part of the methods are used that are employed in the tanning of goat skins for making Morocco leather. These are: to soak the skins to soften them; then put them into a lime vat to remove the hair, and after to take the lime out in a douche consisting of hen and pigeon dung. This done, the skins are then sewed up so as to hold the tanning liquid, which consists of a warm and strong decoction of Spanish sumac. The skins are filled with this liquid, then piled up one above the other and subsequently refilled, two or three times, or as fast as the liquid is forced through the skins. If the furs or pelts were first soaked to soften them, all the fatty, fleshy matter carefully removed, after sewed up as goat skins are, and then filled and refilled several times with a strong decoction of white oak bark, warm, but not hot, no doubt the result would prove satisfactory.

DR. J. F. SCHLIEMAN, HARTFORD, WIS.--Are there any works on the cultivation of the blueberry, and if so could you furnish the same? Do you know of any parties that cultivate them?

ANSWER.--We have never come across anything satisfactory on the cultivation of the blueberry except in Le Bon Jardiniere, which says: "The successful cultivation of the whole tribe of Vacciniums is very difficult. The shrubs do not live long and are reproduced with much difficulty, either by layers or seeds." The blueberry, like the cranberry, appears to be a potash plant, the swamp variety not growing well except where the water is soft, the soil peaty above and sandy below. The same appears also to be true of the high land blueberry; the soil where they grow is generally sandy and the water soft. You can procure Le Bon Jardiniere (a work which is a treasure to the amateur in fruit and plants) of Jansen, McClurg & Co., of Chicago, at 30 cents, the franc. Some parties, we think, offer blueberry plants for sale, but we do not recollect who they are.

H. HARRIS, HOLT'S PRAIRIE, ILL.--Will it do to tile drain land which has a hard pan of red clay twelve to eighteen inches below the surface?

ANSWER.--It will do no harm to the land to drain it if there is a hard pan near the surface, but in order to make tile draining effective on such land, the drains will have to be at half the distance common on soils without the hard pan.

SUBSCRIBER, DECATUR, ILL.--In testing seed corn, what per cent must sprout to be called first-class. I have some twenty bushels of Stowell's Evergreen that was carefully gathered, assorted, and shelled by hand. This I have tested by planting twenty-one grains, of which sixteen grew. How would you class it?

ANSWER.--Ninety-five, certainly. If five kernels out of twenty-one failed to grow, that would be 31 per cent of bad seed, and we should consider the quality inferior. But further, if under the favorable condition of trial, 31 percent failed, ten grains in every twenty-one would be almost sure to, in the field. It was a mistake to shell the corn; seed should always remain on the cob to the last moment, because if it is machine or hand-shelled at low temperature, and put away in bulk, when warm weather comes, it is sure to sweat, and if it heats, the germ is destroyed. Better spread your corn out in the dry, and where it will not freeze, as soon as you can.

L. C. LEANIARTT (?) NEBRASKA.--I wish to secure a blue grass pasture in my timber for hogs. 1. Will it be necessary to keep them out till the grass gets a good start? 2. Shall I follow the directions you gave Mr. Perkins in THE PRAIRIE FARMER, February 9? 3. Is not blue grass pasture the best thing I can give my hogs?

ANSWER.--1. Better do so, and you will then be more likely to get a good catch and full stand. 2. Certainly, if the conditions are the same. 3. Blue grass is very good for hogs, but it is improved by the addition of clover.

C. C. SAMUELS, SPRINGFIELD, ILL.--1. What pears would you recommend for this latitude? 2. Are there any which do not blight? 3. I have some grape vines, light colored fruit, but late, Elvira, I think the nurseryman told me, which appear to be suffering from something at the roots. What is the phylloxera, and what shall I do to my grape vines if they infest the roots?

ANSWER.--The Bartlett for _certain_--it being the best of all the pears--and the Kieffer and Le Conte for _experiment_. If the latter succeed you will have lots of nice large fruit just about as desirable for eating as a Ben Davis apple in May. 2. We know of one only, the Tyson, a smallish summer pear that never blights, at least in some localities, where all others do more or less. 3. If your Elviras are afflicted with the phylloxera, a root-bark louse, manure and fertilize them at once, and irrigate or water them in the warm season. The French vine-growers seem at last to have found out that lice afflict half starved grape roots, as they do half starved cattle, and that they have only to feed and water carefully to restore their vines to health.

J. S. S., SPRINGFIELD, ILL.--I am not a stock man nor a farmer; but I have some pecuniary interests, in common with others, my friends, in a Kansas cattle ranch. I am therefore a good deal exercised about this foot-and-mouth disease. Is it the terrible scourge reported by one cattle doctor, who, according to the papers, says, "the only remedies are fire or death." What do you say?

ANSWER.--The disease is a bad one, very contagious, but easily yields to remedies in the first stages.

THOMAS V. JOHNSON, LEXINGTON, KY.--There is a report here that your draft horses of all breeds are not crossing with satisfaction on your common steeds in Illinois, and that not more twenty five in one hundred of the mares for the last three years have thrown foal, nor will they the present season. Can you give me the facts?

ANSWER.--Our correspondent has certainly been misinformed, or is an unconscious victim of local jealousy, as he may easily convince himself by visiting interior towns, every one of which is a horse market.

Wayside Notes.

BY A MAN OF THE PRAIRIE.

A neighbor of mine who has been intending to purchase store cattle and sheep at the Chicago Stock Yards soon, asked me last night what I thought about his doing so. I asked him if he had read what THE PRAIRIE FARMER and other papers had contained of late regarding foot-and-mouth disease in Maine, Kansas, Illinois, and Iowa. He had not; did not take the papers, and had not heard anything about the disease here or in England. Then I explained to him, as best I could, its nature, contagious character, etc., and having a PRAIRIE FARMER in my pocket, read him your brief history of the ailment in Great Britain. Well, that man was astonished. Finally, said he, What has that got to do with my question about buying cattle and sheep at the stock yards? Just this, I replied: every day there are arrivals at the stock yards of many thousands of cattle from these infected States. Perhaps some of them come from the very counties where this disease is known to exist. The disease may break out any day in scores of places in all these States. It may appear--indeed is quite likely to do so at the stock yards. For aught I know it may be there now. The cattle brokers will not be very likely to make known such an unwelcome fact a minute sooner than they are obliged to. In fact, from what they have lately been saying about the absurdity of new and stringent enactments concerning animal diseases, I conclude they will labor to conceal cases that may really exist. Now you go there to pick up cattle to consume your pasturage this spring and summer, and don't you see you run the risk of taking to your home and neighborhood a disease that may cost you and your neighbors many thousands of dollars? If I were you I would pick up the stock I want in my own neighborhood and county, even though not exactly the kind I would like to have, and though it would cost me a great deal more time and trouble. You see to a Man of the Prairie things look a little squally in this cattle business. We have all got to be careful about this thing. We have a terrible enemy at our stable doors and pasture gates, and we must guard them well. I am not an alarmist, but I would run any time, almost, rather than get licked, and I have always tried to keep a lock on the stable door before the horse is stolen. I am in favor of _in_-trenchment. Perhaps my advice to my neighbor was not sound, but according to the light I have, I have no desire to recall it till I hear more from the infected districts.

To show the difference between the winter in Colorado and the States this way and further west, the Farmer, of Denver, mentions the fact that it knows a farmer who has had about two hundred acres of new land broken between the middle of November and the first of March. Still, these Eastern States have advantages which render them rather pleasant to live in. Our farmers find plenty of time in fall and spring in which to do their plowing and sowing, and our severe winters don't seem to hurt the ground a bit. In fact, I suppose it has got used to them, sort of acclimated, as it were. We have pretty good markets, low railway fares, good schools and plenty of them, and we manage to enjoy ourselves just as well as though we could hitch up to the plow and do our breaking in December and January. We can't all go to Colorado, Dakota, Montana, or Washington Territory, nor to those other Edens at the South and Southwest where a man, so far as winter is concerned, may work about every day in the year; but don't do so any more than we here at the North where we have the excuse of severe weather for our laziness between November and April. I like Colorado and Wyoming, Arkansas and Texas, Alabama and Florida--for other people who like to make their homes there, but my home is here and I like it. "I don't _have_ to" plow in winter, and I don't need to. I am going to try to do my duty and be happy where I am, believing Heaven to be just as near Illinois as any other State or any Territory.

I read in the dispatches this morning that the barns on a ranch near Omaha burned the other night. With the barns were consumed twenty-six cows, eighteen horses, 1,000 bushels of corn and a large lot of hay and oats. In all the loss amounted to above $10,000 and there was no insurance. From all over the country and at all times of the year I read almost daily of similar losses varying from $100 up into the thousands, and the closing sentence of about nine out of ten of these announcements is "no insurance." Now I am neither an insurance agent nor a lightning rod peddler, but there are two luxuries that I indulge in all the time, and these are an insurance policy to fairly cover my farm buildings and their contents, and what I believe to be well constructed lightning rods in sufficient number to protect the property from electric eccentricities. True, my buildings have never suffered from fire or lightning and these luxuries have cost me no inconsiderable amount of cash, but this money has brought me relief from a heap of anxiety, for I know in case my property is swept away I am not left stripped and powerless to provide for my family, and I know that it will not be necessary to mortgage the farm to furnish them a shelter. I don't take _cheap_ insurance either, but invest my money in the policy of a company which I believe has abundant capital and is cautiously managed. A wealthy man can take his fire risks in his own hands if he chooses, but for a man of small or moderate means it seems to me the height of folly to do so. I would rather go without tobacco or "biled shirts" than insurance and lightning rods.

I don't know that an American farmer ever had the gout. Certainly I never heard of such a case. If one does get the ailment, however, if he keeps bees he always has a sure remedy at hand. A German has discovered that if a bee is allowed to sting the affected part, a cure is instantaneous. Why don't Bismarck try this home remedy for his complication of gout and trichinæ?

REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _one year, and the subscriber gets a copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES, FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class weekly agricultural paper in this country._

Poultry-Raisers. Write for Your Paper.

Chicken Chat.

One of my correspondents writes: "My hens don't eat well--they just pick over the food as if it were not good enough for them--and they don't lay well; in fact they don't do much of anything except to mope about--not as if sick, but as if lazy."

Probably you have fed the same thing every day for the last six months, and the hens are getting tired of it. Hens are like other people--they like a change of provender once in awhile--especially when confined indoors. Sometimes over-feeding will cause indigestion, and then the biddies will exhibit the symptoms you describe. In either case, let the fowls fast for a whole day, and then for a few days feed lightly with food that is different from what they have been living on. Give plenty of green food, also Douglas' mixture in the drinking water twice a week.

Another correspondent wants to know why I always advise giving cooked food to fowls and chicks when uncooked food is the natural diet.

I advise cooked food because experience has taught me that it is much better for poultry than the raw articles would be. Because raw bugs and worms constitute the "natural diet" of fowls in their wild state, it does not follow that raw meal and potatoes would be the best and most economical food for our domestic fowls. Other things being equal, chicks that are fed on cooked food grow fatter, are less liable to disease, and thrive better generally than those who worry along on uncooked rations.

If you are short of sitting hens and don't own an incubator, make the hens do double duty. Set two or more at the same time, and when the chicks come out, give two families to one hen, and set the other over again. To do this successfully, the chicks must be taken from the nest as soon as dry and given to the hen that is to raise them; for if a hen once leaves the nest with her chicks, no amount of moral suasion will induce her to go back. Before giving the hen fresh eggs, the nest should be renovated and the hen dusted with sulphur or something to prevent lice.

A lady who commenced raising thoroughbred poultry last season writes me that she proposes to sell eggs for hatching this season, and asks for information about advertising, packing eggs, etc.

The advertising is easy enough: all you have to do is to write a copy of your "ad.," send it to THE PRAIRIE FARMER and other papers that circulate among farmers, pay the bills, and answer the postals and letters as they come. But if I were in your shoes, I would "put my foot down" on the postals to begin with; they don't amount to anything anyway; the people who ask a long string of questions on a postal card are not, as a rule, the ones who become customers. Before we went into the poultry business an old poultry-breeder said: "Don't have anything to do with postals, it don't pay." We thought differently, but to satisfy ourselves, we kept track of the postals, and to-day I have the addresses of over 300 people who wrote us on postal cards. How many of those people became customers? Just one, and he was an Ohio man. When I go into that branch of the poultry business again, my advertisements will contain a postscript which will read thusly: "No postals answered."

And you need not expect that every letter will mean business; people who have not the remotest idea of buying eggs will write and ask your prices, etc., and you must answer them all alike. Here is where circulars save lots of work and postage. I have sent you by mail what I call a model circular, and from that you can get up something to fit your case. Pack your eggs in baskets in cut straw or chaff, first wrapping each egg separately in paper. The eggs should not touch each other or the basket. Put plenty of packing on top, and with a darning needle and stout twine sew on a cover of stout cotton cloth. For the address use shipping tags, or else mark it plainly on the white cotton cover; I prefer the latter way. A day or two before you ship the eggs send a postal telling your customer when to look for them; that's all that postals are good for.

Concerning the duplicating of orders in cases of failure of the eggs to hatch, I quote from one of my old circulars: "I guarantee to furnish fresh eggs, true to name, from pure-bred, standard fowls, packed to carry safely any distance. In cases of total failure, when the eggs have been properly cared for and set within two weeks after arrival, orders will be duplicated free of charge." I furnished just what I promised, and when a total failure was reported I sent the second sitting free--though sometimes I felt sure that the eggs were not properly cared for, and once a man reported a failure when, as I afterwards learned, eight eggs of the first sitting hatched. But, generally speaking, my customers were pretty well satisfied. It sometimes happens that only one or two eggs out of a sitting will hatch, and naturally the customer feels that he has not received the worth of his money. In such cases, if both parties are willing to do just what is right, the matter can be arranged so that all will be satisfied. And you will sometimes get hold of a customer that nothing under the heavens will satisfy; when this happens, do just exactly as you would wish to be done by, and there let the matter end.

If the lady who wrote from Carroll county, Illinois, concerning an incubator, will write again and give the name of her postoffice, she will receive a reply by mail.

FANNY FIELD.

Spring Care of Bees.

Although yesterday was very cold and inclement, to-day (March 11th) is warm and pleasant, and bees that are wintered upon their summer stands will be upon the wing. It would be well on such days as this to see that all entrances to hives are open, so that no hindrances may be in the way of house-cleaning. This is all we think necessary for this month, provided they have plenty of stores to last until flowers bloom. Handling bees tends to excite them to brood rearing, and veterans in bee-culture claim that this uses up the vitality of bees in spring very fast. Although more young may be reared, it is at the risk of the old ones, as they leave the hive in search of water; many thus perish, which often results in the death of the colony, as the young perish for want of nurses. Sometimes, also, in handling bees early in the season the queens are lost, as they may fall upon the ground, yet chilled, and perish.

Bees consume food very fast while rearing brood; naturalists tells us that insects during the larvæ state consume more food than they do during the remainder of their existence. Where a bee-keeper has been so improvident as to neglect to provide abundance of stores for his bees he should examine them carefully, and if found wanting, remove an empty frame, substituting a full one in its place. Where frames of honey are not to be had, liquid honey and sugar can be kneaded together, forming cakes, which can be placed over the cluster. Care should be taken that no apertures are left, thus forming a way for cold drafts through the hive. These cakes are thought to excite bees less than when liquid food is given; they have another advantage, also, viz., bees can cluster upon them while feeding, and do not get chilled.

Bees that have been wintered in cellars, or special repositories, are often injured by being removed too early to their summer stands. It would be better to let them remain, and lower the temperature during warm days with ice, until warm weather has come to stay. An aged veteran in Vermont that we visited the season following the disastrous winter of 1880-81, told us that his neighbors removed their bees from the cellar during a warm spell early in spring, and they were then in splendid condition. He let his bees remain until pollen was plentiful, and brought them out, all being in fine order; by this time his neighbors' colonies were all dead.

Good judgment and care must be exercised in removing bees from the cellar, or disastrous results will follow. We know of an apiary of over one hundred colonies that was badly injured, indeed nearly ruined, by all being taken from the cellar at once on a fine, warm day. The bees all poured out of the hives for a play spell, like children from school, and having been confined so long together in one apartment had acquired, in some measure, the same scent, and soon things were badly mixed. Some colonies swarmed, others caught the fever, and piled up together in a huge mass. This merry making may have been fun for the bees, but it was the reverse of this for the owner, as many queens were destroyed, and hives that were populous before were carried from the cellar and left without a bee to care for the unhatched brood.

When it is time to remove bees from the cellar the stands they are to occupy should be prepared beforehand. They should be higher at the back, inclining to the front; if the height of two bricks are at the back, one will answer for the front. This inclination to the front is an important matter; it facilitates the carrying out of dead bees and debris from the hive, the escape of moisture, and last, and most important item, bees will build their comb straight in the frame instead of crosswise of the hive, and their surplus comb in boxes correspondingly. If a few hives are removed near the close of the day and put in different parts of the apiary, the danger from swarming out is avoided, for the bees will become quiet before morning, and being far apart will not mix up when they have their play spell. The success of bee-keeping depends upon the faithful performance of infinite little items.

The many friends of the Rev. L. L. Langstroth will be pained to learn that he has a severe attack of his old malady and unable to do any mental work. May the Lord deal kindly and gently with him.

During the last fall and winter he has been the light of many conventions, and it will be remembered as a pleasant episode in the lives of many bee-keepers that they had the privilege of viewing his beaming countenance, hearing the words of wisdom as they escaped from his lips, and taking the hand of this truly great and good man.

MRS. L. HARRISON

Extracted Honey.

A couple of copies of THE PRAIRIE FARMER have lately come to my desk, a reminder of my boyhood days, when, in the old home with my father, I used to contribute an article now and then to its columns. There is an old scrap-book on the shelf, at my right, now, with some of those articles in it, published nearly thirty years ago. But my object in writing now is to add something to Mrs. Harrison's article on Extracted Honey. Last year my honey crop was about 3,000 pounds, and half of this was extracted, or slung honey, as we bee-keepers often call it; but for next year I have decided to raise nearly all comb honey, for the reason that I do not get customers so readily for extracted honey. I have never extracted until the honey was all, or nearly all, capped over, and then admitted air into the vessels holding it, so as to be absolutely sure of getting it "dry," and proof against souring. This method has given me about half the amount others obtained by extracting as soon as the combs were filled by the bees, and ripening afterward.