Crittenden Press

The Hubbard squash is one of the very best for fall and winter market or home use.

The bordeaux mixture is still preferred by many for prevention of parasitic diseases of plants.

If you want to know how, when and what to spray, make written application to the department of agriculture, Washington, for bulletin No. 3 on "Spraying."

A trial of ensiling turnips resulted disastrously at the Vermont station.

It is estimated that there are 30,000 miles of irrigation ditches in the state of Colorado.

The Farm Journal says that the wide wagon tire, if generally adopted, would pay the national debt by saving road taxes.

Experiments at the Kansas station prove that seed wheat is better and gives a heavier crop when matured than when cut green.

At the Vermont station naphthaline has been found to be an efficient repellant of moths, while pyrethrum and cedar chips were of no use for this purpose.

In the Poultry Yard

The less you handle eggs intended for hatching the better.

Indian Games have never been considered great layers, but they are splendid eating.

You want plenty of room for profitable poultry.

Carbolated vaseline is one of the best remedies for scabby legs, but any form of grease rubbed on will cure.

Give fowls all the milk they will drink. Hens will take grit and oyster shells both.

When chicks are 10 days old, begin feeding cracked corn and wheat, and as soon as they can eat it readily make it the last meal at night.

A combination of laying hens and raising chickens to sell probably pays best. White, Silver or Golden Wyandottes, Barred or White Plymouth Rocks are the best all around breeds, says Farm Poultry.

An Item on Beekeeping

Unfinished sections—those filled or nearly filled with drawn comb left over from last year—are very valuable to give the bees a start in the spring. The editor of The Beekeepers' Review says: "In my experience these unfinished sections are worth nearly as much as sections filled with honey. The objection has been urged against them that their comb surface is uneven, and that when filled and sealed they do not have the smooth neat appearance that we so admire in combs newly built from foundation. To remedy this unevenness some have pared down the surface of the combs with a knife. This is a slow, unpleasant and puttering job, and an inexpensive arrangement has been invented whereby the cells can be shortened and the combs brought to a level as rapidly as the sections can be handled."

Notes In Pasture:

"Chemicals and clover" are bringing about radical changes on the poorer soils of Long Island and New Jersey.

"Fertilized farming" is very much the fashion just now among progressive farmers in the eastern states who are working worn soils.

Clover, which is even more readily winter killed than wheat, succeeds best on land naturally dry, or which has been thoroughly underdrained.

One of the regulations of the Chicago exposition consists in requiring the use of wide tires on all heavy team wagons employed in the grounds.

Secure Silos,

Cement silos may be made perfectly air tight with only one thickness of plank. Roughly painted on all sides and the joinings laid in lead they will last many years. The most fertile source of decay in wooden silos is the alternate wetting and drying of the wood. Wood kept either perfectly wet or perfectly dry will last indefinitely.

In the Vegetable Garden.

Following are gleanings from The Farm Journal:

Don't plant too many varieties of beets. The old reliable sorts are best—Egyptian for very early and Eclipse for main crop. All seedsmen keep these kinds.

For tender lettuce I find the right way is to lay a board on each side of the row. It keeps the earth cool and retains the moisture a long time. Mine last year was the marvel of the neighborhood. It grew so freely through the dry, hot weather.

A common practice with market gardeners is to set out early cabbage in rows 2 or 2½ feet apart in April, and a month later to plant the horseradish between the rows of cabbage. The crown of the set should be three or four inches below the surface, so it will not interfere with the cultivation of the cabbage until last of June. Set plants 18 inches apart.

Plant a few bush beans, if the family relishes them, a little later than the peas. They will better endure the warm weather of midsummer.

Things That Are Told.

A New York World correspondent says: "I have found that frequent dressings during the growing period of asparagus are better than one heavy dressing. I have had better success by this plan. Guano and salt mixed, and the beds afterward irrigated, is an excellent manure. With late asparagus moisture is an important factor. My rule is a good top dressing and then irrigation of the bed."

It is generally the biggest and best cockerel that goes down with leg weakness, says The Farm Journal. Birds that grow rapidly or are overstimulated lose their nervous force and succumb to this disease. We would not keep a bird of this kind for breeding purposes.

The bush lima beans are worthy of trial.

Mr. James Rankin says that a good duck will produce as many eggs as a hen and at a season when eggs bring the highest profit.

The Ibo on the Niger,

Ivory anklets, often very heavy, are only worn by the Ibo women of wealth and importance, but the metal anklets worn by others may be many pounds in weight, and some of them wear huge brass anklets, perhaps a foot in diameter, which, once fixed to the ankles, are never removed. The men wear a single string of cotton cloth, but those who come much in contact with the Europeans are now learning to wear trousers. Their weapons are flintlocks, bows and spears—the latter both for hurling and thrusting.

The huts are built of mud and matting and are quadrangular in shape. The center is an open courtyard, at one end of which is the apartment of the head of the house, while the wives and family are accommodated in other rooms on the right and left of the courtyard. There is no furniture or ornament, and but few household utensils and weapons.

All the Year Round