The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, November 18, 1915, Page 10

bamnezearen PAGE TEN LACK OF PROPER CARE 1§ CAUSE OF MUCH DISEASE AMONG STOCK ‘Want of care is the prolific cause of accident and disease among stock. The master’s eye or the owner's so- licitude are proverbially preventives against trouble or waste; but if the masters or:the owners will not trouble thomselves to exercise the watchful | care needed, we may be sure no one olse will. The careful farmer will never have his teams brought in at night without having their legs well rubbed down, the sweat washed off the shoulders, then watered, the stalls well bedded and properly fed. Old horses, care- fully handled and “#ed, will outlast young horses that are badly fed and ‘worked. In the dairy, the least falling off in the yield of a cow should be the cause of inquiry or obsarvation until the reason is found; for that there is a reason we may be assured, says a writer in Baltimore American. T/he carefud dairyman will have. each cow’s milk weighed and recorded at each milking; this is the only way to find out the profitable ‘cows in the herd." The feeding of the cows, sheep and horses and hogs should ‘be ‘donie by the farmer or a competent hand, and not by first one person and another. Have regular hours for feeding, milk- ing and working. "More and better work can ‘be done with less exertion by man or animal. The most prosperous farmer in our neighborhood at a farmers’ meeting slated that his success “was largely owing to strict attention to lifitle things.” If this habit of close scrutiny and observation becomes the rule in- stead of the exception, there will be smuch ‘less trouble and loss for. farm- ors to complain of. Fresh Air and Exercise ‘Needed. Breeding bulls, boars, Tams :and stallions- should have plenty of fresh air, light @and exercise during the winter. Our animals cannot develop good bone, muscle, constitution, etc., it they are compelled to spend the win- ter in the .dark, filthy, poorly ventilat- ed pens and stables and not allowed to exercise during the . favorable ‘weather. Roughage for Breeding Animals. - Clover, alfalfa and mixed hay cut early and cured properly, are the best kinds of roughage for breeding ani " #mals of all kinds Guring the winter. 2RI R Ve T Nearly everyone knows that in con- struction work in the cities where teams are used, the mule stands alone as the only means by which such.work can profitably be done. ' This being true, it :seems strange that farmers have not seen the economy of keeping mules instead of horses for farm work, It is true that some farmers, scattered here and there, have recognized their. advantages; yet, judging from the mumber of advertisements of mules in the stock papers in comparison with those of horses, it is evident that mules are not widely used—at least a8 widely as they should be. In the first place, two horses eat as much-as three mules, While two mules will do as much work as three horses of the same weight. Farmers who keep mules know they eat less than horses, but. few have probably realized the great difference in amount of feed consumed. In an experiment the Ne- braska station, by keeping careful account of the rations during a con- siderable period, found that it cost 244, cents a day to keep each horse, and only 1614 cents a day to keep each mule, says a writer in Successful Farming. On this basis it costs about $90 a year to keep a horse and about $60 a year to keep the humble mule, " When it comes to hard work, mules are far superior to horses. They can pull more than horses of the same weight and can stand the strain much longer. One breeder states that they ocan pull g load almost twice as far B8 & horse team in the same length of time, They can stand continuous " bard work much better than horses, 7 Every time that a farmer r;max‘i(s to another that ‘the “farmers can’t _stick together” he lowers the price of wheat a fraction of a cent. THE NONPARTISAN LEADER The growing of the delicate grapes of southern climes may be easily ac- complished in an inexpensive grapery made of concrete, as outlined in the ac- companying -plan. In some localities the climate in the Neorth is so severe that grape growing ds out of the ques-* tion, and the hardiest variety must be buried in winter even to keep them alive and it is; ‘needless to suggest that this is a nuisance, as the vines must :be taken-from the trellis in the fall and replaced in the spring. "But the finest grapes may be grown in a house as designed in this plan, writes Fer- man Haupt, Jr.; of Michigan in Rural New Yorker. A greenhouse is made of re-enforced concrete. We make a wall 12 feet high on the north side and six inches thick, using poultry wire strung from top to bottom of the wall, be- tween the forms'in which is shovéled a mixture of one part best cement, two parts clean sand (to test the sand put some in a pail of water and stir it well, and if it is muddy do not use it. Clean sand will settle to the bottom at once and leave the water clear) eight parts of gravel or brownstone. This will set in a day or two and make a firm wall, but a week or more should elapse be- :fore removing the forms. The south 'side is made of hotbed sash secured to -rods of T-iron bolted to the coencrete walls. The bolts are set in the soft concrete with the head sunk in the wall and the screw out, to which the rods are secured by the nut, and in the interior walls bolts are set wherever it is desired to fasten wood or any other structure. The roof is made of re-enforced con- crete laid flat with a series of galvan- ized iron ventilatorg placed about three feet aaprt. The south wall is four -feet high, two feet being below fhe surface, and three feet apart are made apertures in the wall, connecting with the outside, and below the ground Southern Grapes In Northern States Inexpensive Grapery for Northern CIIme. lin2 ‘a foot. Below the fiash on this south wall from east to west are strung <galvanized. tedegraph wires to support the grapevines. one foot from the glass, At the.east end is a door -three feet by six. feet six inches, open- ing into the grapery. In the cut it is shown in the west end for purposes of illustration. Steps lead down to the floor, and on the north wall is fastened, | within the grapery, poultry wire.. This poultry wire serves ‘the purpose-of-a trellis for growing cucumbers or other climbing fruit. The -entire inside is whitéwashed. The floor is of earth and in winter where it is not desired to put in a heating plant fresh manure is piled on the floor to generate heat. At the bottom of this door is made a ven- tilator with a slide to regulate the ad- mission of air. The grapevines are planted in soil outside the south wall, and the stems trained into the grapery through the apertures above mentioned and the branches trained- on the telegraph wires below the sash. In the house the finest grapes, as Black Hamburg, Thompson Seedless and other delicate and high-priced grapes may be grown in the North where it is impossible to grow them outdoors. The writer re- peatedly tried to raise the Thompson Seedless grape outdoors in the mild winters of southern Michigan without success. The vines'were winter-killed each year and finally succumbed en- tirely. With a grapery such as de- scribed above they can be grown eas- ily. This grapery is not an expensive structure, as one may see by a little figuring, and in the winter, and when cucumbers and other like fruits de- mand a high price, they may be grown against the north wall. Ampelopsis quinquefoiia, ivy and other vines planted on the outside of the wali make a very attractive addition to the vista of the farm. Mules Superior to Horses for Work B Two:Year-Old "Mule Coit. ' ; v X D e —_— “He 'is not making any,” replied Uncle Fogy. “It is his wife who is doing the complaining. You see, Em-, mett went ‘to Kansas City ‘not long ago to buy goods, and a few days af- ter his return there came a dainty note signed “Your Little ‘Sunshine.” It fell into his wife’s hands, and he has been lying ever since. I should call his conditionmiddlin’ critleai; too, for I don’t see how in tumkétt he s; going to falsify ‘his way‘_out" of 'iit-” We've American farmers and see what we've got. Now lets try being organized American ‘ farmers for aw}flle ard GET ‘somewhere. tried being “irdependent : MAY BE GATHERED UP AROUND THE FARM : weather is ocold and wet. Much food may ‘now be gathered up in ‘the orchard, garden and field, ‘which costs | little, and would :otherwise be wasted. Boil the wheat screenings from the threshing machine ‘with smaHl ‘potatoes warm to the shoats. After:the slop is | eaten give = little old corn, just what they will eat up clean. Experiencsd feeders say that a better quality of meat and at'the least costmay'be had when old corn is ‘the main grain fed the last fattening month. Pork ‘made with soft corn is mot .chéaply made. Keep-the soft corn and nibbins Tor the store'shoats. Corn fed to growing shoats, in con-* nection with grass’ and clover will ‘make a better gain in _proportion than 1f either is fed alone. “While slops are ' 2 good feed, they should never be al- lowed to become toqQ sour before feed- ing. ‘An important item is to have a dry ‘shelter for the hogs and a clean - dry yard. ¢ ; Another important matter is plenty of pire water, wood ashes and corn- cob charcoal. Shoats grazed during the summer in clover and given a moderate amount of kran and middlings made into slop, fed slightly sour, and glven. ; a liberal allowance of old corn and | pure water one month before buteh- - > ering will make the choicest ‘kind of fagily meat and.lard. The meat will be firm, not over-fat, sweet and fine grained, the fat making the best of lard. Plan to Induce Exercise. ‘Many swine breeders make a prac- tice of feeding their brood sows at quite a ‘distance from their sleeping quarters, in order to induce them to exercise freely; and I have found this an -excellent plan, for many sows be- come sluggish during pregnancy and will not-exercise unless compelled to. Watch Sows and Litter. Sows with a young litter should be watched carefully, for there are many sows that do not give enough milk to start the pigs off well. In such cases the youngsters should be fed a little whole cow’s milk, warmed at first, and later skim milk, with a handful of shorts in it. -_— and have greater recuperative power. That is, they can do hard work day, after day and still be fresh the next day when horses are too fatigued to work. Mules can stand more hardships than horses and require less care. Indeed, it is surprising how well they - do under .neglect and abuse. They, stand up much better than horses in -hot weather. They are less liable ta sickness and disease and are hardly‘ ever troubled with spavins. not founder from over-cating. ' They are patient and will do any work that- a horse can do. . - ~ Two -other great advantages thau .should not be overlooked by the pro spective buyer are that mules can bq: put to light work when.less than two years old, and are useful for twenty to thirty years. Mules are, as a rule, gentle. They will eat out of the same trough with | other mules.and not fight. Occasionals ly, mules yun away, but when they do, they never, hurt themselves air horses do. And when running in the pasture, they seldom get cut on barbed: wire. , A further advantage is that they grow more to uniform sizes and colors than horses. If a man has a mule to sell, he can get a better price than for ‘@ horse because mules'are more easy :ily mated. Mules are invariably sound ;and therefore marketable, while a {large majority of horses become ‘uny ‘sound and have to be sold at a disi advantage. A three-year-old ‘mule i :worth $250 and a span in their primq ;trom $500° to '$860. \ An exchange remgrks that France is going ‘to buy a large slice of our wheat crop ‘to feed the soldiers.” Who will buy this slice When ?he soldlers 5 are all dead? GOOD CHEAP HOG FEED Flesh and fat are mow made &t | half the cost of :grain when ‘the and ‘mix ‘with wheat bran; feed luke- They do