Chapter 7

At the late meeting of the Iowa State Agricultural Society, President Smith strongly advocated the permanent location of the State Fair. He thought it had been hawked about long enough for the purpose of giving different cities a chance to skin the people. The Legislature should aid the society in purchasing grounds. Ample ground should be purchased, as the fair is growing, and they should not be governed solely by our present demands. Secretary Shaffer touched briefly on the weather of last summer, the acreage and yield of crops, the demonstration of the futility of trying to acclimatize Southern seed-corn in the North, and the appointment of a State entomologist. He thought the State should assist the society in distributing its publications. The improvement of the Mississippi river was briefly handled. The state of the corn during the past year, the seeding, the yield, etc., were summarized by months. The corn crop was a failure. The sorghum industry in its various bearings was discussed. Iowa will yet, he said, produce its own sugar. The question was raised whether the State should not encourage the growth of Northern cane. The sheep industry and its peril from worthless dogs was duly treated. This society was the first to insist on the necessity of Legislation on this subject looking to the extermination of worthless dogs. The society proceeded to locate the fair for the next year. Des Moines offered the present grounds for 10 per cent of the gate money. Dubuque offered free grounds and $2,500 in money. The first ballot resulted in seventy-one votes for Des Moines and twenty-three for Dubuque. Officers were elected as follows: President, William L. Smith, of Oskalossa; Vice-President, H. C. Wheeler, of Sac; Secretary, John Shaffer, of Fairfield; Treasurer, George H. Marsh, of Des Moines.

STILL ANOTHER FAT STOCK SHOW.

At the meeting of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture last week, it was decided to hold a Fat Stock Show at Indianapolis some time in December of the present year. Liberal premiums will be offered. The matter elicited a discussion of considerable length, and it was generally believed that the show, if properly managed, could be made a success. Even if it failed to realize expenses the first year, the exhibition would be incalculably beneficial to the State. The election of new members to the Board resulted as follows: First district, Robert Mitchell, of Gibson county; Second, Samuel Hargrave, of Pike; Third, J. Q. A. Seig, of Harrison; Fourth, W. B. Seward, of Monroe; Eighth, W. S. Dungan, of Johnson; Fourteenth, L. B. Custer, of Cass; Fifteenth, W. A. Banks, of La Porte; Sixteenth, R. M. Lockhart, of DeKalb.

Three Fat Stock Shows in the West! True, the success of the Chicago exhibit is having a wide influence. The live stock interests of the country are fully awakened to the important results from these shows. They are, indeed, educators of the highest character, and they stimulate to excellence unthought of by most farmers, ten years ago. Chicago, Kansas City, Toronto, and now Indianapolis! Is there not room for a similar exhibition in the great stock State of Iowa? Why do we not hear from West Liberty or Cedar Rapids?

QUESTIONS ANSWERED.

F. J. ST. CLAIR, URSA, ILL.--Who was the first President to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation?

ANSWER.--Washington, in 1798, on the adoption by the States of the Constitution of the United States.

SUBSCRIBER, PEOTONE, ILL.--How many kinds of soils are there, and what crops are best suited to bottom and what to upland soils?

ANSWER.--There are really but two soils, agriculturally considered, fertile soils and barren soils. Generally speaking, fertile soils are the result of the disintegration of mechanical forces and chemical agencies of limestone rocks; and barren soils--sandy soils--are produced by similar means, from rocks largely or wholly composed of silex or quartz. The mixture of these two give rise to soils of an infinite variety, almost, having many differing degrees of fertility, down to barrenness. But you have practically but one soil to deal with, a true limestone soil of high fertility, which has received considerable accessions from silicious rocks. Your bottom lands do not differ materially from the upland, except that the former have received considerable vegetable matter, which the latter have lost. For the lowlands, corn, grass, and potatoes are the best crops; for the highlands, the small grains, sorghum, beans, etc. But provide as much vegetable matter for the highlands as your lowlands possess, and make the sum of mixture in both alike, and your highlands will grow corn, grass, and potatoes as well as the low.

CHARLES VAN METER, SPRINGFIELD, MO.--What is the best work on Grape Culture? My means are small, and I can not, of course, buy a work costing ten or twelve dollars, however good it may be. Recommend, for this latitude, something good and cheap.

ANSWER.--For your needs you will find nothing better than Hussman's Grapes and Wine, a single volume, which will be sent you from THE PRAIRIE FARMER office, on remittance of $1.50. But there is something cheaper still, and very good, indeed, but covering different grounds from Hussman. The Grape Catalogue of Bush & Son & Meissner. You may obtain it by sending twenty-five cents to Bush & Son & Meissner, Bushberg, Missouri.

CONSTANT READER, CHICAGO, ILL.--I am thinking of going down, one of these days, to Florida, with a view to go into oranges and make more money than I have, or lose it all. I have read a good deal about the seductive business, in Florida, though but little of the details of cultivation in other countries. Tell me where I can find something about how they manage in Spain and the south of Europe.

ANSWER.--Most of the really valuable works on this subject are in foreign languages--French, Spanish, or Italian. However, for a wonder, a late publication of the Department of State, at Washington--Reports from the consuls of the United States, No. 33--contains a valuable and lengthy paper on Orange Growing at Valencia, Spain, contributed by the consul there, which you may perhaps obtain through your member of Congress.

J. D. SLADE, COLUMBUS, GA.--I am interested in a large plantation near this city with a friend who is a practical farmer. We have decided to abandon the planting of cotton to a great extent and adopt some other crops. Having concluded to try the castor bean, I wish to ask some information. 1. Will you give me the names of parties engaged in the cultivation of the crop in Illinois and Wisconsin? 2. Where can I get the beans for planting? 3. Describe the soil, mode of preparation, planting, and cultivation, and give me such other information as we may need.

ANSWER.--1. Winter wheat and corn have, to a very large extent, taken the place of castor beans and tobacco in the agriculture of Southern Illinois. As for Wisconsin, we question whether a bushel of castor beans was grown there last year. The two sections where they are now mostly cultivated are in Southwestern Missouri, by the old settlers, and in Middle and Southern Kansas, by the first comers. For information on the whole subject, write the Secretary of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture for the quarterly report issued two or three years ago, which was mostly devoted to castor-bean culture. The Secretary's address is Topeka, Kansas. 2. Of the Plant Seed Company, St. Louis, and also valuable information--that city being the chief market for the castor beans. 3. The soil best suited to the crop is a light, rich, sandy loam, though any dry and fertile soil will yield good crops. For some reason not clearly understood, the castor bean has been found a powerful and energetic agent in improving some, if not all soils, the experience in Kansas being, that land which previously refused to yield good crops of wheat or corn either, after being cultivated two or three years in castor beans has borne great crops. This has been attributed to the completeness and the long time the crop shades the ground, and also to the long tap root of the plant, which makes it a crop of all others, suited to dry soils, and hot climate. After preparing the land as for corn, it should be laid off so the plants will stand, for your latitude, five feet each way. Three or four seeds are usually planted, but when the beans are five to six inches high, and out of the way of cut-worms, they are thinned to one. The cultivation is after the manner of Indian corn, and the planting should be at the same time. The beans for your latitude will begin to ripen late in July, and continue to the end of the season, when the plants are killed by severe frosts, light frosts doing scarcely any damage. In harvesting, a spot of hard ground is prepared and the pods as gathered are thrown on the ground and dried out in the sun. And here is where the trouble with making a successful and profitable crop comes in. The beans must be kept in the dry from the time of gathering the pods--one soaking rain always seriously damaging, and frequently destroying the merchantable value of so much of the harvest as happens to be on the ground. As in the case of broom corn, the hot, dry, and protracted late summer and fall months of that State, afford the Kansas farmer something like a monopoly of the castor bean crop. It is nevertheless giving place to corn and wheat.

LETTER FROM CHAMPAIGN.

The snow continues to accumulate, the last having fallen before midnight the 11th. There were only about two inches, but it is drifting this morning, for all it is worth, before a gale from the West. The first and second snows stay where they were put at first, but the subsequent ones are in drifts or scattered all abroad, in the many snows and the excellence of the sleighing, this winter resembles '78-'79, but there is more snow and the temperature is very much more severe. I suppose there is well-nigh eighteen inches now on the ground, something quite unusual in this latitude. Let us hope it will stay sometime longer yet, and save the fall wheat.

The intensely cold weather of last week was rough on stock of all kinds and in all conditions, and particularly hard on that portion having short rations. But I have seen many worse storms and much harder weather for stock; none however in which the fruits, small or large, suffered worse. At least that is the general judgment at the present. Peach buds are killed of course, and it will be lucky if the trees have escaped. All blackberries, but the Snyder, are dead down to the snow line--and some think the Snyder has not escaped, for reasons given further on. Examinations made of the buds of Bartlett, Duchess, Howell, Tyson, Bigarreau, Seckel, Buffum, Easter Buerre, and others yesterday, showed them all to be about equally frosted and blackened, and probably destroyed. Last year our pears suffered a good deal from the sleet of the second of February, which clung to the trees ten days, and the crop was a light one. This year, if appearances can be trusted, there will be less. In the many intense freezes of the last twenty-five years, I have never known pear buds to be seriously injured; last year being a marked exception and this still more so. Hardy grapes have probably suffered as much, and the tender varieties are completely done for. How well the May cherry has resisted the low temperature remains to be seen. As for the sweet cherries, it is probably the end of them.

There were buds set for an unusually abundant crop of apples in 1884--the Presidential year. The hardy varieties have escaped material damage, no doubt, but some of the tender Eastern varieties, like the Baldwin, Roxbury Russet, in all reasonable probability, have not only lost their buds but their lives also.

* * * * *

The disasters following the very low temperature of last week have no doubt been increased by the immaturity of the wood, due to the cool, moist summer. If summers like those of 1882-83 are not warm enough to ripen the corn crop, buds and wood of fruit trees will not acquire a maturity that resists intense cold as we see by our experience with pears, grapes, and peaches in the fruit season of 1883, and which is almost sure to be repeated with aggravations in 1884. Possibly the ground being but lightly frozen and protected by a good coat of snow, may save the apple trees and others from great disaster following thirty to thirty-five degrees below zero, when falling on half ripened wood, but the reasonable fear is that orchards on high land in Northern and Central Illinois, have been damaged more than last year. If so perhaps it were better after all, since it will open the eyes of a great many to the mistakes in location heretofore made, and lead them to put out future orchards where they ought to be.

* * * * *

If my word of warning could reach those engaged in taking measures at Washington to prevent the spread of epidemic and infectious diseases in our stock, it would be "go slow." If the wishes of a few veterinarians are met and the demands of a raft of pauper lawyers and politicians are complied with, it will result in the creation of a half dozen commissions. Each one of them, as previous ones have done, will find sufficient reason for their continuance and reports will be made that half the live stock in the country, South and West, is either in danger from or suffering under some of the many forms of epidemic or infectious diseases--and by the way, what justice is there in putting Detmers out of the way, and clinging to Salmon and Laws, both of whom indorsed nearly every thing the former did? Beware of commissions, and above all of putting men upon them whose bread and butter is of more consequence to them than the stock interest, vast as it is.

B. F. J.

WAYSIDE NOTES.

BY A MAN OF THE PRAIRIE.

Of the 2,500,000 packages of seeds distributed by the United States Agricultural Department during last year more than 2,000,000 packages were furnished to Congressmen, and I notice that some of the papers are making unfavorable comments on the fact. Now I do not discover anything that seems to me radically wrong in this practice of the Department of Agriculture, or rather in the instructions under which the practice prevails. There are some men, mostly seedsmen, and some publishers, mostly those interested in securing patronage through seed premiums, or which are run in the interest of seed dealers, who grumble a great deal about this matter, and who sneer at the department and derisively call it the "Government seed store." But I imagine if the public was thoroughly informed of the good the department has done by its seed distributions, it would have a great deal better opinion of this branch than it now has, and I wish Mr. Dodge, or some other efficient man, who knows all about it from the beginning would give to the country a complete history of what has been done in the way of introducing and disseminating new seeds, plants, and cuttings. I believe if the whole truth were told it would put an end to ridicule and denunciation. I am aware that there have been some things connected with this work that were not exactly correct. There may have been some helping of friends in the purchase of seeds; there may have been some noxious weed seeds sent out to the detriment of the country; Congressmen may have used their quota of seeds for the purpose of keeping themselves solid with their constituents. But, after all, it is my candid opinion the seed distributing branch of the department has been an untold blessing to the farmers of this country. As to this matter of giving a large proportion of the seeds to Congressmen, I have not much fault to find about that either, though perhaps a better system of distribution might be devised. I have yet to learn that an application to a Congressman for seed has been disregarded, if the seeds were to be had, whether that application came from a political friend or a political foe. And I do wish that farmers generally would make more frequent application to the members from their respective districts than they do. It will be money in their pockets if they will keep posted in what the department has to distribute which is valuable, or new and promising, and solicit samples either from Congressmen or direct from the Commissioner of Agriculture.

* * * * *

"Put your thumb down there," said an experienced orchardist to me the other day. We were talking about the recently started theory that the best bearing orchards are to be found on the low lands of the prairies. "You just wait and see if these brag orchards ever bear another crop! It will be as it was after the severe winter of 1874 and '75, when the following autumn many of our orchards bore so profusely. The succeeding year the majority of the trees were as dead as smelts, and the balance never had vigor enough afterward to produce a decent crop. Once before," said he, "we had a similar experience in Illinois. Put your thumb down at this place and watch for results. Do not say anything about this in your Wayside Blusterings, at least as coming from me," and of course I don't. But I wanted the readers of THE PRAIRIE FARMER to help me watch with fear and trembling for the fulfillment of this horticultural prophesy, so I straightway make a note of it and ask you all to "put your thumbs down here" and wait. My friend's theory is that the severe cold of last winter destroyed a large portion of the roots of these trees; that the root pruning caused the extra fruitfulness, but proved too severe for the vitality of the trees to withstand, and that next year the bulk of the trees will not leaf out at all; and further that the old theory as taught by Kennecott, Whitney, Edwards, and the rest of the "fathers," that apple trees cannot thrive with wet feet, was the correct theory then and is the correct theory now. He would still plant on high, well drained land.

* * * * *

My neighbor up at the "Corners" has a large flock of grade Cotswold sheep--Cotswolds crossed on large native Merinos. He keeps them to produce early lambs for the Chicago market. For the last three or four years he has received, on an average, four dollars per head for his lambs, taken at his farm. It is a profitable and pleasant sort of farming. Some day I may tell how he manages, in detail.

* * * * *

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 NOTES.

Poultry-Raisers. Write for Your Paper.

CHICKEN CHAT.

Let me see--it was sometime during the month of December that the "Man of the Prairie" went wandering all over the village, and even scoured the country round about the village in search of an extra dozen eggs, and went home mad, and, man fashion, threatened to kill off every hen on the place if they didn't proceed to do their duty like hens and fellow citizens. It was also during that same December that the fifty Plymouth Rock hens that we are wintering in the barn cellar, laid, regardless of the weather, 736 eggs--an average of nearly fifteen eggs apiece.

"Is it a fact that the corn is too poor for manufacture into eggs?"

I don't know anything about the corn in your locality, but I do know that our Plymouth Rocks had whole corn for supper exactly thirty-one nights during the month of December--not Western corn, but sound, well-ripened, Northern corn, that sells in our market for twenty cents more per bushel than Western corn. I also know that hens fed through the winter on corn alone will not lay enough to pay for the corn, but in our climate the poultry-raiser may feed corn profitably fully one-half the time. When the morning feed consists of cooked vegetable and bran or shorts, and the noon meal of oats or buckwheat, the supper may be of corn. I believe the analytical fellows tell us that corn won't make eggs, and I am sure I don't know whether it will or not, and I don't much care; but I know that hens will eat corn, when they can get it, in preference to any other grain, and I know that it "stands by" better than anything else, and that it is a heat-producing grain, and consequently just the thing to feed when the days are short and the nights long, and the mercury fooling around 30 degrees below zero. Hens need something besides egg material; they must have food to keep up the body heat, and the poultry-raiser who feeds no corn in winter blunders just as badly as the one who feeds all corn.

* * * * *

Talking about corn for fowls reminds me that the agricultural papers are full of wails from farmers who were taken in last season on seed corn. If they had followed the plan of an old farmer of my acquaintance they would not now be obliged to mourn a corn crop cut off by frost. When this old chap went to farming forty years ago he bought a peck of seed corn of the Northern yellow flint variety, and as he "don't believe in running after all the new seeds that are advertised in the papers," he is still raising the same variety--only it ripens some three weeks earlier than it did then. Every fall he does through his field and selects his seed corn from the best of the earliest ripened ears; when these ears are husked one or two husks are left on each ear, and then the husks, with the ears attached, are braided together until there are fifteen or twenty ears in a string. These strings of seed corn are hung up in the sun for a fortnight or so, and then hung from the rafters in a cool, dry loft over the wood-shed; there it remains till seed time comes again, and it never fails to grow.

FANNY FIELD.

BUSINESS STILL RUNNING.

"My own hens closed out business six weeks ago," not long since said "Man of the Prairie." He mentioned also, that he had not much faith in pure bred poultry. Now he severely complains that no eggs can be found among the farmers nor in village stores. I will not say that pure strains of poultry are better layers than common, but, when one pays a good price for poultry, it is an incentive to provide good shelter and bestow upon them some manifestations of interest which would not be done with the common fowls. Herein may lay in part the secret of better returns from pure strains.

Years ago our chickens 'closed out business' for several months. Of late this procedure is unknown. We crossed our best common hens with Plymouth Rock stock, paying a good price. We furnished comfortable quarters, gave variety of feed, and at present writing the lady-like biddies furnish enough eggs for our own use and some to sell to stores and neighbors.

We still have a few common hens (not caring to have all pure) yet we find that with same care and attention, the purer strains give best returns.

Skeptical, like a good many others, we were loth to experiment. Thanks to Fanny Field for her wise and instructive poultry writings. In a recent number she seemed to be in doubt whether her writings were heeded or doing any one good. Let me say in behalf of myself and a few others, that a few married ladies now have pin money by following her instructions, who, before, had to go to their lords (husbands) when they wanted a little money, which was sometimes begrudgingly given, and often times not at all.

BACHELOR & MAID. COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA.

THE APIARY.

THE BEST HIVE.

In answer to many inquiries as to the best hive, we will here state that is a mere matter of choice. Many good movable frame hives are now in use, free from patents, and while we prefer the Langstroth, there may be others just as good.