Fig. 274.Fig. 274. Babcock Tester and How To Use It
The tester, acid, acid measure, test-bottle, and thermometer at bottom; filling the pipette on right; adding the acid and measuring the fat at top
The Babcock tester shows only the amount of pure butter-fat in the milk. It does not tell the exact amount of finished butter which is made from 100 pounds of milk. This is because butter contains a few other things in addition to pure butter-fat. Finished and salted butter weighs on an average about one sixth more than the fat shown by the tester. Hence to get the exact amount of butter in every 100 pounds of milk, you will have to add one sixth to the record shown by the tester. Suppose, for example, you took one sample from 600 pounds of milk and that your test showed 4 per cent of fat in every 100 pounds of milk. Then, as you had 600 pounds of milk, you would have 24 pounds of butter-fat. This fat, after it has been salted and after it has absorbed moisture as butter does, will gain one sixth in weight. As one sixth of 24 is 4, this new 4 pounds must be added to the weight of the butter-fat. Hence the 600 pounds of milk would produce about 28 pounds of butter.
EXERCISE1. Find the number of pounds of butter in 1200 pounds of milk that tests 3 per cent of butter-fat.2. A cow yields 4800 pounds of milk in a year. Her milk tests 4 per cent of butter-fat. Find the total amount of butter-fat she yields. Find also the total amount of butter.3. The milk of two cows was tested: one yielded in a year 6000 pounds of milk that tested 3 per cent of fat; the other yielded 5000 pounds that tested 4 per cent. Which cow yielded the more butter-fat? What was the money value of the butter produced by each if butter-fat is worth twenty-five cents a pound?
EXERCISE
1. Find the number of pounds of butter in 1200 pounds of milk that tests 3 per cent of butter-fat.
2. A cow yields 4800 pounds of milk in a year. Her milk tests 4 per cent of butter-fat. Find the total amount of butter-fat she yields. Find also the total amount of butter.
3. The milk of two cows was tested: one yielded in a year 6000 pounds of milk that tested 3 per cent of fat; the other yielded 5000 pounds that tested 4 per cent. Which cow yielded the more butter-fat? What was the money value of the butter produced by each if butter-fat is worth twenty-five cents a pound?
Economy in raising live stock demands the production of all "roughness" or roughage materials on the farm. By roughness, or roughage, of course you understand that bulky food, like hay, grass, clover, stover, etc., is meant. It is possible to purchase all roughage materials and yet make a financial success of growing farm animals, but this certainly is not the surest way to succeed. Every farm should raise all its feed stuffs. In deciding what forage and grain crops to grow we should decide:
1. The crops best suited to our soil and climate.2. The crops best suited to our line of business.3. The crops that will give us the most protein.4. The crops that produce the most.5. The crops that will keep our soil in the best condition.
1.The crops best suited to our soil and climate.Farm crops, as every child of the farm knows, are not equally adapted to all soils and climates. Cotton cannot be produced where the climate is cool and the seasons short. Timothy and blue grass are most productive on cool, limestone soils. Cowpeas demand warm, dry soils. But in spite of climatic limitations, Nature has been generous in the wide variety of forage she has given us.
Our aim should be to make the best use of what we have, to improve by selection and care those kinds best adapted to our soil and climate, and to secure, by better methods of growing and curing, the greatest yields at the least possible cost.
2.The crops best suited to our line of business.A farmer necessarily becomes more or less of a specialist; he gathers those kinds of live stock about him which he likes best and which he finds the most profitable. He should, on his farm, select for his main crops those that he can grow with the greatest pleasure and with the greatest profit.
Fig. 275.Fig. 275. Filling the Barn with Roughage from the Farm
The successful railroad manager determines by practical experience what distances his engines and crews ought to run in a day, what coal is most economical for his engines, what schedules best suit the needs of his road, what trains pay him best. These and a thousand and one other matters are settled by the special needs of his road.
Ought the man who wants to make his farm pay be less prudent and less far-sighted? Should not his past failuresand his past triumphs decide his future? If he be a dairy farmer, ought he not by practical tests to settle for himself not only what crops are most at home on his land but also what crops in his circumstances yield him the largest returns in milk and butter? If swine-raising be his business, how long ought he to guess what crop on his land yields him the greatest amount of hog food? Should a colt be fed on one kind of forage when the land that produced that forage would produce twice as much equally good forage of another kind? All these questions the prudent farmer should answer promptly and in the light of wise experiments.
3.The crops that will give us the most protein.It is the farmer's business to grow all the grass and forage that his farm animals need. He ought never to be obliged to purchase a bale of forage. Moreover, he should grow mainly those crops that are rich in protein materials, for example, cowpeas, alfalfa, and clover. If such crops are produced on the farm, there will be little need of buying so much cotton-seed meal, corn, and bran for feeding purposes.
4.The crops that produce the most.We often call a crop a crop without considering how much it yields. This is a mistake. We ought to grow, when we have choice of two crops, the one that is the best and the most productive on the farm. Average corn, for instance, yields on an acre at least twice the quantity of feeding-material that timothy does.
5.The crops that will keep our soil in the best condition.A good farmer should always be thinking of how to improve his soil. He wants his land to support him and to maintain his children after he is dead.
Since cowpeas, clover, and alfalfa add atmospheric nitrogen to the soil and at the same time are the best feeding-materials, it follows that these crops should hold an important place inevery system of crop-rotation. By proper rotating, by proper terracing, and by proper drainage, land may be made to retain its fertility for generations.
EXERCISE1. Why are cowpeas, clover, and alfalfa so important to the farmer?2. What is meant by the protein of a food?3. Why is it better to feed the farm crops to animals on the farm rather than to sell these crops?
EXERCISE
1. Why are cowpeas, clover, and alfalfa so important to the farmer?
2. What is meant by the protein of a food?
3. Why is it better to feed the farm crops to animals on the farm rather than to sell these crops?
The drudgery of farm life is being lessened from year to year by the invention or improvement of farm tools and machines. Perhaps some of you know how tiresome was the old up-and-down churn dasher that has now generally given place to the "quick-coming" churns. The toothed, horse-drawn cultivator has nearly displaced "the man with the hoe," while the scythe, slow and back-breaking, is everywhere getting out of the way of the mowing-machine and the horserake. The old heavy, sweat-drawing grain-cradle is slinking into the backwoods, and in its place we have the horse-drawn or steam-drawn harvester that cuts and binds the grain, and even threshes and measures it at one operation. Instead of the plowman's wearily making one furrow at a time, the gang-plows of the plains cut many furrows at one time, and instead of walking the plowman rides. The shredder and husker turns the hitherto useless cornstalk into food, and at the same time husks, or shucks, the corn.
The farmer of the future must know three things well: first, what machines he can profitably use; second, how to manage these machines; third, how to care for these machines.
Fig. 276.Fig. 276. Properly Protected Tools and Machines
Fig. 277.Fig. 277. Unprotected Tools and Machines
Fig. 278.Fig. 278. The Harvester at Work
Fig. 279.Fig. 279. In Need of Improvement
The machinery that makes farming so much more economical and that makes the farmer's life so much easier and more comfortable is too complicated to be put into the hands of bunglers who will soon destroy it, and it is too costly to be left in the fields or under trees to rust and rot.
If it is not convenient for every farmer to have a separate tool-house, he should at least set apart a room in his barn, or a shed for storing his tools and machines. As soon as a plow, harrow, cultivator—indeed any tool or machine—has finished its share of work for the season, it should receive whatever attention it needs to prevent rusting, and should be carefully housed.
Such care, which is neither costly nor burdensome, will add many years to the life of a machine.
Occasionally, when a cook puts too much vinegar in a salad, the dish becomes so sour that it is unfit to eat. The vinegar which the cook uses belongs to a large group of compounds known as acids. The acids are common in nature. They have the power not only of making salads sour but also of making land sour. Frequently land becomes so sour from acids forming in it that it will not bear its usual crops. The acids must then be removed or the land will become useless.
The land may be soured in several ways. Whenever a large amount of vegetable matter decays in land, acids are formed, and at times sourness of the soil results. Often soils sour because they are not well drained or because, from lack of proper tillage, air cannot make its way into the soil. Sometimes all these causes may combine to produce sourness.Since most crops cannot thrive on very sour soil, the farmer must find some method of making his land sweet again.
So far as we now know, liming the land is the cheapest and surest way of overcoming the sourness. In addition to sweetening the soil by overcoming the acids, lime aids the land in other ways: it quickens the growth of helpful bacteria; it loosens stiff, heavy clay soils and thereby fits them for easier tillage; it indirectly sets free the potash and phosphoric acid so much needed by plants; and it increases the capillarity of soils.
However, too much must not be expected of lime. Often a farmer's yield is so increased after he has scattered lime over his fields that he thinks that lime alone will keep his land fertile. This belief explains the saying, "Lime enriches the father but beggars the son." The continued use of lime without other fertilization will indeed leave poor land for the son. Lime is just as necessary to plant growth as the potash and nitrogen and phosphoric acid about which we hear so much, but it cannot take the place of these plant foods. Its duty is to aid, not to displace them.
We can tell by the taste when salads are too sour; it is more difficult to find out whether land is sour. There are, however, some methods that will help to determine the sourness of the soil.
In the first place, if land is unusually sour, you can determine this fact by a simple test. Buy a pennyworth of blue litmus paper from a drug store. Mix some of the suspected soil with a little water and bury the litmus paper in the mixture. If the paper turns red the soil is sour.
In the second place, the leguminous crops are fond of lime. Clover and vetch remove so much lime from the soil that they are often called lime plants. If clover and vetch refuseto grow on land on which they formerly flourished, it is generally, though not always, a sign that the land needs lime.
In the third place, when water grasses and certain weeds spring up on land, that land is usually acid, and lime will be helpful. Moreover, fields adjoining land on which cranberries, raspberries, blackberries, or gallberries are growing wild, may always be suspected of more or less sourness.
Four forms of lime are used on land. These, each called by different names, are as follows:
First, quicklime, which is also called burnt lime, caustic lime, builders' lime, rock lime, and unslaked lime.
Second, air-slaked lime, which is also known as carbonate of lime, agricultural lime, marl, and limestone.
Third, water-slaked, or hydrated, lime.
Fourth, land plaster, or gypsum. This form of lime is known to the chemists as sulphate of lime. Do not forget that this last form is never to be used on sour lands. We shall therefore not consider it further.
Air-slaked lime is simply quicklime which has taken from the air a gas called carbon dioxide. This is the same gas that you breathe out from your lungs.
Water-slaked lime is quicklime to which water has been added. In other words, both of these are merely weakened forms of quicklime. One hundred pounds of quicklime is equal in richness to 132 pounds of water-slaked lime and to 178 pounds of air-slaked lime. These figures should be remembered by a farmer when he is buying lime. If he can buy a fair grade of quicklime delivered at his railway station for $5.00 a ton, he cannot afford to pay more than $3.75 a ton for water-slaked lime, nor more than $2.75 for air-slaked lime of equal grade. Quicklime should always be slaked before it is applied to the soil.
As a rule lime should be spread broadcast and then harrowed or disked thoroughly into the soil. This is best done after the ground has been plowed. For pastures or meadows air-slaked lime is used as a top-dressing. When air-slaked lime is used it may be spread broadcast in the spring; the other forms should be applied in the fall or in the early winter.
What do birds do in the world? is an important question for us to think about. First, we must gain by observation and by personal acquaintance with the living birds a knowledge of their work and their way of doing it. In getting this knowledge, let us also consider what we can do for our birds to render their work as complete and effective as possible.
Think of what the birds are doing on every farm, in every garden, and about every home in the land. Think of the millions of beautiful wings, of the graceful and attractive figures, of the cunning nests, and of the singing throats! Do you think that the whole service of the birds is to be beautiful, to sing charmingly, and to rear their little ones? By no means is this their chief service to man. Aside from these services the greatest work of birds is to destroy insects. It is one of the wise provisions of nature that many of the most brilliantly winged and most enchanting songsters are our most practical friends.
Not all birds feed on insects and animals; but even those that eat but a small amount of insect food may still destroy insects that would have damaged fruit and crops much more than the birds themselves do.
As to their food, birds are divided into three general classes. First, those that live wholly or almost wholly oninsects. These are called insectivorous birds. Chief among these are the warblers, cuckoos, swallows, martins, flycatchers, nighthawks, whippoorwills, swifts, and humming-birds. We cannot have too many of these birds. They should be encouraged and protected. They should be supplied with shelter and water.
Birds of the second class feed by preference on fruits, nuts, and grain. The bluebird, robin, wood thrush, mocking-bird, catbird, chickadee, cedar-bird, meadow lark, oriole, jay, crow, and woodpecker belong to this group. These birds never fail to perform a service for us by devouring many weed seeds.
Fig. 280.Fig. 280. A Kingbird
The third class is known as the hard-billed birds. It includes those birds which live principally on seeds and grain—the canary, goldfinch, sparrow, and some others.
Birds that come early, like the bluebird, robin, and redwing, are of special service in destroying insects before the insects lay their eggs for the season.
The robins on the lawn search out the caterpillars and cutworms. The chipping sparrow and the wren in the shrubbery look out for all kinds of insects. They watch over the orchard and feed freely on the enemies of the apple and other fruit trees. The trunks of these trees are often attacked by borers, which gnaw holes in the bark and wood, and often cause the death of the trees. The woodpeckers hunt for theseappetizing borers and by means of their barbed tongues bring them from their hiding-places. On the outside of the bark of the trunk and branches the bark lice work. These are devoured by the nuthatches, creepers, and chickadees.
Fig. 281.Fig. 281. A Warbler
During the winter the bark is the hiding-place for hibernating insects, which, like plant lice, feed in summer on the leaves. Throughout the winter a single chickadee will destroy great numbers of the eggs of the cankerworm moth and of the plant louse. The blackbirds, meadow larks, crows, quail, and sparrows are the great protectors of the meadow and field crops. These birds feed on the army worms and cutworms that do so much injury to the young shoots; they also destroy the chinch bug and the grasshopper, both of which feed on cultivated plants.
A count of all the different kinds of animals shows that insects make up nine tenths of them. Hence it is easy to see that if something did not check their increase they would soon almost overrun the earth. Our forests and orchards furnish homes and breeding-places for most of these insects. Suppose the injurious insects were allowed to multiply unchecked in the forests, their numbers would so increase that they would invade our fields and create as much terror among the farmers as they did in Pharaoh's Egypt. The birds are the only directfriends man has to destroy these harmful insects. What benefactors, then, these little feathered neighbors are!
Fig. 282.Fig. 282. The Hairy Woodpecker
It has been estimated that a bird will devour thirty insects daily. Even in a widely extended forest region a very few birds to the acre, if they kept up this rate, would daily destroy many bushels of insects that would play havoc with the neighboring orchards and fields.
Do not imagine, however, that to destroy insects is the only use of birds. The day is far more delightful when the birds sing, and when we see them flit in and out, giving us a glimpse now and then of their pretty coats and quaint ways. By giving them a home we can surround ourselves with many birds, sweet of song and brilliant of plumage.
If the birds felt that man were a friend and not a foe, they would often turn to him for protection. During times of severe storm, extreme drought, or scarcity of food, if the birds were sufficiently tamed to come to man as their friend, as they do in rare cases now, a little food and shelter might tide them over the hard time and their service afterwards would repay the outlay a thousandfold. If the boys in your families would build bird-houses about the house and barn and in shade trees, they might save yearly a great number of birds. In building these places of shelter and comfort, duecare must be taken to keep them clear of English sparrows and out of the reach of cats and bird-dogs.
Whatever we do to attract the birds to make homes on the premises must be done at the right time and in the right way. Think out carefully what materials to provide for them. Bits of string, linen, cotton, yarn, tow and other waste material, all help to induce a pair to build in the garden.
Fig. 283.Fig. 283. Protecting our Friends
It is an interesting study—the preparation of homes for the birds. Trees may be pruned to make inviting crotches. A tangled, overgrown corner in the garden will invite some birds to nest.
Wrens, bluebirds, chickadees, martins, and some other varieties are all glad to set up housekeeping in man-made houses. The proper size for a bird-room is easily remembered. Give each room six square inches of floor space and make it eight inches high. Old, weathered boards should be used; or, if paint is employed, a dull color to resemble anold tree-trunk will be most inviting. A single opening near the top should be made two inches in diameter for the larger birds; but if the house is to be headquarters for the wren, a one-inch opening is quite large enough, and the small door serves all the better to keep out English sparrows.
The barn attic should be turned over to the swallows. Small holes may be cut high up in the gables and left open during the time that the swallows remain with us. They will more than pay for shelter by the good work they do in ridding the barn of flies, gnats, and mosquitoes.
Almost in the center of the western half of our continent there is a vast area in which very little rain falls. This section includes nearly three hundred million acres of land. It stretches from Canada on the north into Texas on the south, and from the Missouri River (including the Dakotas and western Minnesota) on the east to the Rocky Mountains on the west. In this great area farming has to be done with little water. This sort of farming is therefore called "dry-farming."
The soil in this section is as a rule very fertile. Therefore the difference between farming in this dry belt and farming in most of the other sections of our country is a difference mainly due to a lack of moisture.
As water is so scarce in this region two things are of the utmost importance: first, to save all the rain as it falls; second, to save all the water after it has fallen. To save the falling rain it is necessary for the ground to be in such a condition that none of the much-needed rain may run off. Every drop should go into the soil. Hence the farmer should never allow his top soil to harden into a crust.Such a crust will keep the rain from sinking into the thirsty soil. Moreover the soil should be deeply plowed. The deeper the soil the more water it can hold. The land should also be kept as porous as possible, for water enters a porous soil freely. The addition of humus in the form of vegetable manures will keep the soil in the porous condition needed. Second, after the water has entered the soil it is important to hold it there so that it may supply the growing crops. If the land is allowed to remain untilled after a rain or during a hot spell, the water in it will evaporate too rapidly and thus the soil, like a well, will go dry too soon. To prevent this the top soil should be stirred frequently with a disk or smoothing harrow. This stirring will form a mulch of dry soil on the surface, and this will hold the water. Other forms of mulch have been suggested, but the soil mulch is the only practical one. It must be borne in mind that this surface cultivation must be regularly kept up if the moisture is to be retained.
Fig. 284.Fig. 284. The Disk Harrow
Some experiments in wheat-growing have shown how readily water might be saved if plowing were done at the right time. Wheat sowed on land that was plowed as soon as the summer crops were taken off yielded a very much larger return than wheat sowed on land that remained untilled for some time after the summer crops were gathered. This difference in yield on lands of the same fertility was due to the fact that the early plowing enabled the land to take up a sufficient quantity of moisture.
Fig. 285.Fig. 285. Red Kafir Corn in Shock
In addition to a vigilant catching and saving of water, the farmer in these dry climates must give his land the same careful attention that lands in other regions need. The seed-bed should be most carefully prepared. It should be deep, porous, and excellent in tilth. During the growing season all crops should be frequently cultivated. The harrow, thecultivator, and the plow should be kept busy. The soil should be kept abundantly supplied with humus.
Some crops need a little different management in dry-farming. Corn, for example, does best when it is listed; that is, planted so that it will come up three or four inches beneath the surface. If planted in this way, it roots better, stands up better, and requires less work.
Just as breeders study what animals are best for their climates, so farmers in the dry belt should study what crops are best suited to their lands. Some crops, like the sorghums and Kafir corn, are peculiarly at home in scantily watered lands. Others do not thrive. Experience is the only sure guide to the proper selection.
To sum up, then, farmers can grow good crops in these lands only when four things are done: first, the land must be thoroughly tilled so that water can freely enter the soil; second, the land must be frequently cultivated so that the water will be kept in the soil; third, the crops must be properly rotated so as to use to best advantage the food and water supply; fourth, humus must be freely supplied so as to keep the soil in the best possible condition.
Irrigation is the name given to the plan of supplying water in large quantities to growing crops. Since the dawn of history this practice has been more or less followed in Asia, in Africa, and in Europe. The Spanish settlers in the southwestern part of America were probably the first to introduce this custom into our country. In New Mexico there is an irrigating trench that has been in constant use for three hundred years.
Fig. 286.Fig. 286. Pumping Water for Irrigation
The most common source of water for irrigating purposes is a river or a smaller stream. Artesian wells are used in some parts of the country. Windmills are sometimes used when only a small supply of water is needed. Engines, hydraulic rams, and water-wheels are also employed. The water-wheel is one of the oldest and one of the most useful methods of raising water from streams. There are thousands of these in use in the dry regions of the West. Small buckets are fastened to a large wheel, which is turned by the current of a stream. As the wheel turns, the buckets are filled, raised, and then emptied into a trough called a flume. The water flows through the flume into the irrigating ditches, which distribute it as it is needed in the fields. In some parts of California and other comparatively dry sections, wells are sunk in or near the beds of underground streams, and then the water is pumped into ditches which convey it to the fields to be irrigated.
Engines are often used for pumping water from streams and transferring it to ditches or canals. The canals distribute the water over the land or over the growing crops.
Fig. 287.Fig. 287. The Main Ditch of an Irrigation Plant
None of these methods, however, can be used for watering very large areas of land. Hence, as the value of farm lands increased other methods were sought. Shrewd men began to turn longing eyes on the wide stretches of barren land in the West. They knew that these waste lands, seemingly so unfertile, would become most fruitful as soon as water was turned on them. Could water enough be found? New plans to pen up floods of water were prepared, and immense sums were spent in carrying out these plans. Enormous dams of cemented stone were thrown across the gorges in the foothills of the mountains. Behind these solid dams the water from the rains and the melting snow of the mountains was backed for miles, and was at once ready to change barrenness into fruitfulness. The stored water is led by means of maincanals and cross ditches wherever it is needed, and countless acres have been brought under cultivation.
Water is generally applied either by making furrows for its passage through the fields or by flooding the land. The latter plan is the cheaper, but it can be used only on level lands. Where the land is somewhat irregular a checking system, as it is called, is used to distribute the water. It is taken from check to check until the entire field has been irrigated.
Fig. 288.Fig. 288. The Process of Irrigating Corn
The furrow method is usually employed for fruits and for farm and garden crops. In many places the grass and grain crops are now supplied with water by furrows instead of by flooding.
Irrigated lands should be carefully and thoroughly tilled. The water for irrigation is costly, and should be made to go as far as possible. Good tillage saves the water. Moreover, all cultivated crops like corn, potatoes, and orchard and truck crops ought to be cultivated frequently to save the moisture,to keep the soil in fit condition, and to aid the bacteria in the soil. It was a wise farmer who said, "One does not need to grow crops many years in order to learn that nothing can take the place of stirring the soil."
Tree fruits.Water is conducted through very narrow furrows from three to five feet apart, and allowed to sink about four feet deep, and to spread under the ground. Then the supply is cut off. The object is to wet the soil deeply, and then by tillage to hold the moisture in the soil.
Small fruits.The common practice is to run water on each side of the row until the rows are soaked.
Potatoes.A thorough soaking is given the land before planting-time, and then no more than is absolutely necessary until blossoming-time. After the blossoms appear keep the soil moist until the crop ripens.
Garden crops.Any method may be employed, but the vital point is to cultivate the ground as early as it can be worked after it has been irrigated.
Meadows and alfalfa.Flooding is the most common method in use. The first irrigation comes early in the spring before growth has advanced much, and the successive waterings after the harvesting of each crop.
As ours is a country in which the people rule, every boy and every girl ought to be trained to take a wide-awake interest in public affairs. This training cannot begin too early in life. A wise old man once said, "In a republic you ought to begin to train a child for good citizenship on the day of its birth."
Fig. 289.Fig. 289. Beauty from Flowers and Grass
Fig. 290.Fig. 290. A Country Road in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
Happy would it be for our nation if all the young people who live in the country could begin their training in good citizenship by becoming workers for these four things:
First, attractive country homes.
Second, attractive country schoolhouses and school grounds.
Third, good country schools.
Fourth, good roads.
If the thousands on thousands of pupils in our schools would become active workers for these things and continue their work through life, then, in less than half a century, life in the country would be an unending delight.
One of the problems of our day is how to keep bright, thoughtful, sociable, ambitious boys and girls contented on the farm. Every step taken to make the country home more attractive, to make the school and its grounds more enjoyable, to make the way easy to the homes of neighbors, to school, to post-office, and to church, is a step taken toward keeping on the farm the very boys and girls who are most apt to succeed there.
Not every man who lives in the country can have a showy or costly home, but as long as grass and flowers and vines and trees grow, any man who wishes can have an attractive house. Not every woman who is to spend a lifetime at the head of a rural home can have a luxuriously furnished home, but any woman who is willing to take a little trouble can have a cozy, tastefully furnished home—a home fitted with the conveniences that diminish household drudgery. Even in this day of cheap literature, all parents cannot fill their children's home with papers, magazines, and books, but by means of school and Sunday-school libraries, by means of circulating book clubs, and by a little self-denial, earnest parents can feed hungry minds just as they feed hungry bodies.
THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS FOR THE HOME.THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS FOR THE HOME.
Fig. 291.Fig. 291. An Attractive Country Home
Agricultural papers that arouse the interest and quicken the thought of farm boys by discussing the best, easiest, and cheapest ways of farming; journals full of dainty suggestions for household adornment and comfort; illustrated papers and magazines that amuse and cheer every member of the family; books that rest tired bodies and open and strengthen growing minds—all of these are so cheap that the money reserved from the sale of one hog will keep a family fairly supplied for a year.
Fig. 292.Fig. 292. An Unimproved Schoolhouse
Fig. 293.Fig. 293. An Improved Schoolhouse
Fig. 294.Fig. 294. The Same Road after and before Improvement
If the parents, teachers, and pupils of a school join hands, an unsightly, ill-furnished, ill-lighted, and ill-ventilated school-house can at small cost be changed into one of comfort and beauty. In many places pupils have persuaded their parents to form clubs to beautify the school grounds. Each father sends a man or a man with a plow once or twice a year to work a day on the grounds. Stumps are removed, trees trimmed, drains put in, grass sowed, flowers, shrubbery, vines, and trees planted, and the grounds tastefully laid off. Thus at scarcely noticeable money cost a rough and unsightly school ground gives place to a charming school yard. Cannot the pupils in every school in which this book is studied get their parents to form such a club, and make their school ground a silent teacher of neatness and beauty?
Fig. 295.Fig. 295. Washington's Country Home
Life in the country will never be as attractive as it ought to be until all the roads are improved. Winter-washed roads,penning young people in their own homes for many months each year and destroying so many of the innocent pleasures of youth, build towns and cities out of the wreck of country homes. Can young people who love their country and their country homes engage in a nobler crusade than a crusade for improved highways?
Dry Paris GreenWet Paris GreenParis green1 lb.Paris green¼ to 2 lb.Lime or flour4 to 16 lb.Lime¼ to ½ lb.Water50 gal.
Kerosene EmulsionHard soap (in fine shavings)½ lb.Soft water1 gal.Kerosene2 gal.
Dissolve soap in boiling water, add kerosene to the hot water, churn with spraying pump for at least ten minutes, until the mixture changes to a creamy, then to a soft, butterlike, mass. This gives three gallons of 66-per-cent oil emulsion, which may be diluted to the strength desired. To get 15-per-cent oil emulsion add ten and one-half gallons of water.
Copper SulphateCopper sulphate1 lb.Water18 to 25 gal.
Use only before foliage opens, to kill wintering spores.
Bordeaux MixtureCopper sulphate (bluestone)4 to 5 lb.Lime (good, unslaked)5 to 6 lb.Water50 gal.
Dissolve the copper sulphate (bluestone) in twenty-five gallons of water. Slake the lime slowly so as to get a smooth, thick cream. Never cover the lime with too much water. After thorough slaking add twenty-five gallons of water. When the lime and the bluestone have dissolved, pour the two liquids into a third vessel. Be sure that each stream mixes with the other before either enters the vessel. Strain through a coarse cloth.
Mix fresh for each time. Use for molds and fungi generally. Apply in fine spray with a good nozzle.
Bordeaux-paris-green MixtureOrdinary Bordeaux mixture50 gal.Paris green4 oz. to 2 lb.
Use for both fungi and insects on apple, potato, etc.
Bordeaux-Arsenate-of-Lead MixtureOrdinary Bordeaux mixture50 gal.Arsenate of lead2 to 3 lb.
Used for fungous and insect enemies of the potato, and of the apple when bitter rot is troublesome.
Commercial Lime-Sulphur Arsenate of LeadCommercial lime-sulphur1½ gal.Arsenate of lead2 to 3 lb.Water50 gal.
Use for spraying apples.