When You Sell Hay off the farm you are selling its crop constituents; when you feed it and make good use of the manure resulting, you may sell the animal product and yet add to the fertility of the land. A Big Crop of Weeds, if properly utilized, may not be a misfortune. Plow them under when they are making vigorous growth and before any of them have gone to seed, and they will prove a valuable fertilizer. The Value of the Farm is enhanced by keeping the roadside clear of brush and weeds and trash, not only by tidiness in appearance but by the destruction of weed pests. Canning Establishments.-The Western canning establishments are driving the French peas out of the American market. By more skillful packing the quality of the home product has been materially improved. Tree Cultivation.-Trees do not differ in any fundamental method of living from vines and crops that are always cultivated. Cultivation is as necessary to the one as the other. The Pruning of an Orchard should be practically done before the trees are five years old from planting, and with proper care and attention it may all be done with the thumb. The Waste of Wood Ashes is almost criminal, as there is hardly anything in the way of a fertilizer which returns so much of value to the soil according to the weight. Printer's Ink is better than tar to protect seed corn from the birds. Stir a little ink with the corn and then dry by rolling the corn in fine dry sand. Trees and Plants need food and water, and they should be as regularly and intelligently supplied as the animals on the farm. It is only a difference in kind. Tree Planting.-Plant the different kinds of trees with a view to separate irrigation. Some kinds need much more water than others, and they need it at different seasons. Warm Stables.-Building paper, forest leaves or sawdust between the boards to keep the stables warm are much cheaper than grain and hay to keep the animals warm. Stock that has paid during this long and severe depression will be the most profitable when the good times come again. This is worth remembering and thinking about. The Costs of Transportation and sale are as large for a poor as for the best article. All the advantage in the way of profit lies with the best product. Horses are so cheap now and there is getting to be so little for them to do that the farmer can with good grace use riding machinery wherever practicable. Present indications are that the horse industry will be first to recover from the depression which has characterized the live stock markets. Good sanitary conditions are the best preventive of cholera or other diseases, and this applies as to men, animals or poultry. The essentials for summer cultivation are to kill the small weeds and keep the surface loose. Cultivate shallow and often. A horse's collar in harness should be as carefully fitted as we fit the shoes upon our feet, or the coat upon our back. You must cultivate your small fruits and trees the same as any other farm crop from which you expect to realize profit. The commercial demand for horses is growing, and it is getting to be a question how it can be supplied. A Massachusetts fruit grower estimates the cost of spraying his orchard at ten cents per tree for the season. Save the best for seed-this applies to colts, calves, lambs, pigs, pullets, grains, fruits and vegetables. A good rooster is better the second year than the first. Don't make a mistake in killing or selling it. A cow cannot give full returns in milk unless she receives full feed every month in the year. MAXIMS FOR THE IRRIGATED FARM Cultivate as well as irrigate. Irrigation is the best crop insurance. Never attempt to do more than can be done well. The best savings bank for a farmer is his manure pile. The strongest man is the man who stands for an idea. The surest way to success is to do well whatever you attempt. The man who enjoys his work as he does his bicycle succeeds at it. There are more book farmers and less blockheads than formerly. The farmer's welfare is the nation's welfare; the last cannot exist in this country without the first. Drainage is the first necessity in road making. Without it the best work will fail to accomplish its purpose. It is a careless man who keeps no record of his business, and this applies to farmers as well as to other people. Don't sell all of the best and perfect fruit; give the family a share. Few children enjoy eating the culls all the time. A man who is too busy to read the papers is too busy for his own good. It is necessary to keep in touch with these rapid New conditions demand new methods in moving times. farming as in other business. Workers make better progress than kickers, whether horses or men. It is the man who masters the conditions which confront him who succeeds. It is better to fill your own place in the world well than to covet another man's. Great crops may make large business, but low prices afford only small profits. Marketing the crop successfully is of quite as much importance as growing it. The man who works so hard he cannot think may with reason be classed as a fool. Intelligence is the tool which makes an opportunity where none else will appear. Success depends more on the use of the ability one has than on the abundance of it. Study the application of water in irrigating for its permanent as well as present results. The man who is better fitted for feeding hogs than for growing fine fruit ought to feed hogs. The farmer who works most by rule will have the better results to show at the end of the year. There is no place where careful attention pays better proportionately than in the poultry yard. When you see a man who has no garden, orchard or fruit patch you may be pretty certain he does not read. He scorns the idea of being a "book farmer." The farmer who breeds mongrel cattle, hogs or fowls will in time exhaust a big bank account, if he has one, or will become poverty stricken if he has not. But comparatively little of a man's education has come from books. Experience is the best teacher and its lessons are never ended so long as intelligence lasts. A man in this age who waits for something to turn up is more than likely to diebefore the turn comes. The one who turns up something is the more useful man. The lucky farmer is universally the one who gives the most careful, painstaking attention to the details of his business, whatever branch of the industry he may be engaged in. The American people do not like to be humbugged in the fruits they buy, and the grower who recognizes that fact when packing for the market will act wisely for his own interest. It is often better policy for the farmer to sell some of the land he has than to buy more. More land than is properly and profitably cultivated is a burden rather than a benefit. PULSE OF THE IRRIGATION INDUSTRY A meeting was held yesterday at the Wellington hotel to make arrangements for an exhibition of gold industries in Chicago some time in the fall. The Chicago Western society has the matter in charge, and the intention is to have exhibits from all gold-producing countries, together with an exhibition of the systems of mining, crushing and assaying ores. The gold regions of Colorado, California, Washington, British Columbia, Oregon and the newly developed gold fields of Georgia were represented and enough gold to start a national bank was pledged for the exhibit. The Carriboo district will exhibit a brick worth $42,000, representing a twenty-nine-day washup on one claim. French creek and Trail creek districts, which have been reported by prospectors engaged by Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato as being the richest gold fields in the world, will exhibit several carloads of rich ore. The Canadian Pacific road, through its agent, Mr. J. F. Lee, promised several carloads of ore and quartz. Letters were read at the meeting yesterday from mine-owners in Russia, China, Australia and Africa signifying their willingness to take part in the exhibition. Several full-sized crushers will be in operation and also apparatus for extracting the gold from the quantities of placer washings which will be on hand. There will be working models of everything connected with a gold mine, from the most primitive wooden rocker to the latest magno-electric machine of chilled steel. Quite a discussion was aroused at the meeting by proposals from G. E. Girling, editor of The Irrigation Age, and Mrs. Alice Houghton of the Chicago mining exchange to admit silver and copper to the exposition. The question was left undecided. being raised upon non-irrigable land, the rolling bluffs surrounding this great valley, has been seriously scorched, and will probably show a decreased yield when harvested the latter part of August, which will be 25 per cent. below that of 1895. Potatoes are looking well, while the hay crop is larger in acreage and in yield than ever before, having been so far advanced at time of drought as to be unaffected by it, and the part that clover will take in the quality excellent. hay crop exceeds previous years, with the The average decrease in yield per acre here of cereals this year will be 8 per cent. below that of 1895, but a larger acreage should make the total in bushels a little above last year's crop. The prospects, therefore, are excellent in a general way; although individually not up to the average yield, will be appreciated. P. C. WAITE, Bozeman, Mont. MUCH IN LITTLE. It would be worth millions to Kansas if her fly-by-night farmers could be induced to emulate the postage stamp, which sticks to something till it gets there.--Hon. Edwin Taylor, address to Kansas Agr'l College. Wages of farm labor are as high as ever, while household help is not to had at any price. This state of affairs seems to be general, yet the price of farm products was never so low. This thing has got to be evened up.--Orange Judd Farmer. A telegram reached grain buyers last week directing them to pay only six cents. for oats. This is the proposed prosperity under the McKinley regime. - O'Neill, Neb., Beacon Light. In the language of the street, Nebraska is "strictly in it this year." J. M. Thurston was a central figure in the St. Louis convention. W. J. Bryan was the idol of the Chicago convention. W. V. Allen will be bellwether of the Populist convention. Bentley is the silver Prohibitionist nominee for the presidency. And Nebraska will have the biggest corn on earth, this fall, too. In fact there isn't anything desirable in sight that she has not taken in. -McCook, Neb., Tribune. Postmaster Hesing of Chicago says the present fight is "the proletariat against the plutocrat." Some time ago it was simply a craze that had died.-Ogden, Utah, Standard. They call that man a statesman whose ear is tuned to catch the slightest pulsations of a pocketbook, and denounce as a demagogue anyone who dares to listen to the heartbeat of humanity. William Jennings Bryan. WHAT CONGRESS DID. N summing up the work in behalf of irrigation, accomplished at the last session of Congress, Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming writes that the finished work consists of: Two appropriations amounting to $54500 for the gauging or measurement of the water flow of streams. An appropriation of $175,000 for topographical surveys. An amendment to the so-called Carey law permitting the states to pledge their state selection of United States lands, under the 1,000,000 acre allowance, as security for the money or labor necessary to take out irrigating canals for the reclamation and preparation of the lands for settlement. A provision (in the river and harbor act) that the United States Engineers shall examine and report upon at least one reservoir site each in Wyoming and Colorado. Of the first mentioned, $4,500 was appropriated in the annual Agricultural appropriation act for gauging streams, and $50,000 in the sundry civil act. The gauging of streams is comparatively a new work. Some $15,000 was expended for the purpose during the last fiscal year. While not entirely devoted to irrigation, yet quite a portion of the gauging work to be prosecuted under these appropriations will be in localities where irrigation is intended. The appropriation for topographical work is in the sundry civil act, and is $25,000 more than for the last year, and the act contains a provision that at least two iron posts shall be erected in each township of six miles square of the public survey, erected as near township or section corner stones as possible, and bearing upon each a label showing the altitude above sea level. act. The amendment to the Carey law is contained in the sundry civil appropriation It simplifies and makes applicable and practical the original law, which provides for appropriating a million acres to each state, to be selected by the state, and reclaimed through irrigation, for bona fide settlers, in tracts not to exceed 160 acres to each owner. Most of the arid states found difficulty under the law as first enacted in securing parties who were will ing to advance the capital to construct the necessary canals without security (except the prospect of selling water rights to settlers). Hence, until titles were perfected, investors would constantly fear the absorption of the lands by settlers procuring them direct from the government under homestead and other acts, leaving ditch builders in the lurch. The indefinite language of the original act has made its interpretation by the Interior Department somewhat difficult, and has placed obstacles in the way of states securing the benefits which were originally supposed to be conferred. A GLANCE OVER THE FIELD. CALIFORNIA. A vein of hard coal is reported as found nine miles north of San Jacinto. The flow from the Eady tunnel near Ontario has been increased from 30 to 35 inches. Orange county will have a good crop of walnuts this year, a product for which it is becoming famous. The new cannery at Fresno paid only $12 a ton for apricots and the farmers kicked vigorously thereat. River gauges, such as have proved great money-savers in the Sacramento, are to be placed in the San Joaquin river. The Hermosa Water Company has increased its flow of water six inches, and 5,000 feet of pipe has been put in to carry it to the irrigators. White men are to be employed in the places of Chinamen in the celery beds of the Santa Ana valley. This is a settlement of a long pending conflict. |