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Show FARM AND GARDEN.; . i MATTERS OF INTEREST TO AGRI- j CULTURISTS. gome Cp-to-ate Hints A boat Cultivation Culti-vation of the Soil and Yields Thereof Horticulture, Viticulture and floriculture. Uniformity. In the marketing of animals in numbers num-bers at a time there is nothing perhaps per-haps more important than uniformity of breed, shape, condition and quality. It is quite necessary to please the eye of the buyer as well as his sense of possible profit to be made from the purchase of a given lot of animals. It is quite possible that a number of animals of different types and conditions condi-tions may weigh just as much as another an-other lot of uniform hogs, for in- eltmlnate all the middle men but one. The consumers will be interested in knowing if it means better service. From some of the canneries come reports re-ports to the effect that the market is I constantly demanding better quality in the canned goods. As a result the by--I products of the orchard are not so ! much sought after as the main productsfirst-class fruit. Probably the demand has not as yet greatly affected the quality that goes into the cans, but that it will in the future seems certain. cer-tain. The raisers of fruit will then be compelled to settle all over again the question of what to do with small and unsalable fruit. Luther Burbank, the man that has made himself world-famous by the many hybrid plants he has produced, is reported now to have produced a seedless prune. The result was obtained ob-tained by crossing a French prune with a plum; what variety we do not know. The new product has a seed,: but it Is small and edible. This will make it possible to dry prunes without with-out extracting the stones. A few; years ago such a result would have been regarded as impossible, but since , the production of the seedless orange, the seedless grape and a few other seedless fruits now known commercially, commer-cially, no one wonders at the reports of the same thing being done with . plums and prunes. It may be that Australia and New. Zealand will become strong shippers; of fruit to the European markets. It; is largely a question of how long fruit can be kept sound, and the Australians are constantly hunting for new meth-, ods of preserving fruits for transit. If they can find some method that will: keep fruit perfect for sevea weeks they have a good chance of getting a strong hold on the markets desired.. stance, but that fact will not make them bring as much in the market as the other bunch. When one looks at a lot of hogs that are of every kind and sort known to hogdom all colors, shapes, sizes and ages mixed together in one unsightly aggregation he cannot can-not but deplore the fact that any one would waste good feed on such nondescripts nonde-scripts when it might just as well have been fed to a uniform bunch, which would have commanded a far more profitable price upon the market. And yet such lots of hogs come daily to the Yards. Among them are good hogs, well fed, well finished, of good quality, but they are few and far between be-tween and their presence does not materially ma-terially help the chances of the others, oth-ers, but invariably the price of the good hogs is cut on account of the bad ones. It is like the company a young man keeps being considered an index to his personal character. One i ney can men snip iruu in tuts part of our winter and have it reach market in early spring. This would give a supply of fruit to England and the Continental countries after their own fruit had disappeared. That the Australians are likely to succeed is evidenced by some experiments carried on recently by the government of Victoria. Vic-toria. Pears and peaches were boxed for shipment and then exposed for a certain time to the effects of hydro- -cyanic acid gas. " After that they were put away and kept seven weeks to represent shipment. When taken out may be guiltless in fact, but if he keeps bad company he will by inference infer-ence receive the same bad character as his friends. A good hog should always al-ways come to the market with good companions, and the more they all look alike the better it will be for the shipper, ship-per, and this truth applies equally to the selling of cattle in the great markets mar-kets of the country. It is true, too, of the sheep business, and 'for that reason sheep men ate in the habit of sorting out their fat sheep into uniform uni-form bunches, and by so doing cer- tn connrs hottpr TirlceS for them than' would otherwise be the j case. The same thing should be done by shippers of hogs, the idea being to forward lots of pigs that are about of even development, weight, quality and breed. But some will say this idea is --goad one aa-Eer:oa:y -csrrect-, -b'A what are you going to do about it when you have no such hogs to ship or pick from?" That is another point we are coming to. Why not have such hogs to ship? Why breed and feed onv nthor vinrl of hnsr in these days of of their boxes at the end oi tnai time both the peaches and pears were found to be in a perfect state of preservation. We do not know the details of the experiment ex-periment or what the effect was on the eating quality of the fruit. So far as we are abletoJearn the trial waa successful and we are likely to hear more of it at some future time. However, How-ever, if it does prove a success we are ', not forgetful of the fact that hydro- 1 "'' cyanic acid gas can be used by other people than the Australians. breed sales where good, pure-bred boars can be had at moderate prices? Why stick to the old-fashioned, ante-quated ante-quated types of swine which were once predominant? Why not grade up the home swine and have presentable animals to feed and sell? There is no possible excuse for possessing, feeding or shipping scrub swine. Such hogs are a disgrace to an American citizen. They are a disgrace to the times we live In. They are an eyesore to buyers. buy-ers. They ere of little profit upon the block. They are mere seavangers upon the farm. They do not utilize food to the best possible profit. They furnish a poor quality of pork, hams and bacon. They should be considered consid-ered a nuisance and the sooner they are gotten rid of the belter will it be Commercial Fertilizers. The use of commercial fertilizers was unknown before the year 1840, except ex-cept perhaps by individual experimenters experi-menters whose observations were never reported to the public. In that year the famous German chemist. Baron von Liebig, published his book on agricultural chemistry. Four cardinal cardi-nal principles were set forth by him: 1. A soil is fertile only when it eon-tains eon-tains all the materials necessary for the nutrition of plants, and those materials ma-terials must be in proper quantity and in an available form. 2. All crops remove re-move some of this fertility, a part of which is replaced by nature, and a part must be replaced by man, if replaced re-placed at all. 3. The fertility of land can be retained only by returning to for all concernea. inuw wo uv, who have been feeding scrub hogs ana shipping them to the markets at a loss or to receive poorer prices than their neighbors receive for uniform hogs will take this matter to heart Hogs multiply rapidly.' It is not a lifetime's life-time's work to change the entire characteristics char-acteristics of tie farm herd of swine. Commence now and save only those bows that are of one breed, style, color and shape. This done, for any sake do not breed them to the nearest boar just because he is a boar! Consider It an insult to even propose the mating of the picked sows with anything short of a pedigreed boar of standard breed an see to It that he is a good one from a family noted for good deeds and ojs4 continued pure breeding. We do not care so much what breed is selected se-lected so long as it is a pure breed, for all pure breeds today are well worth breeding and feeding, and one top cross of such blood will make a ya Improvement in the uniformity anft quality of the feeding hogs, while continued breeding in the same direction direc-tion and annual selection and coupling of only the best sows will soon bring j an herd of swine up to the standard of ixcellence which commands profitable profita-ble prices in all of our markets. Down wWh the scrub, say we! Common settee demands it; sensible men approve ap-prove it; profit follows surely in the wake of the work. Farmers' Review. Horticultural Obserratlons. (From the Farmers' Review.) The Dried Fruit Association of California Cal-ifornia is said to be making efforts to reach the consumers more directly thra has been the case previous to thl time. It is apparently trying to the land all the fertility that Is removed re-moved from it. 4. The amount of fertility fer-tility restored to the farm by ordinary husbandry is not sufficient to keep up the fertility. When Liebig wrote there were many soil problems unsolved un-solved that are now understood, but in the main his propositions hold good. The removal of. nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash impoverishes soils, and by bad systems of farming and no attention to scientific rotations this process i3 accelerated. The farming has been so badly conducted on much of our lands that there is no possibility possi-bility of bringing them back to their original condition in a reasonable time except by resort to what are termed commercial 'fertilizers. Jncreaalnz Use of Potash. The use of potash for fertiliaing purposes is increasing very rapidly in this country. The following table of imports of potash salts for ten years was furnished the Farmers' Review by the agent in charge of the German Kali exhibit at the Illinois State Fair. The items represent tons of 2,000 lP89U0n!!.?: 133,266 ," 183988 i qqo ... 123,881 tgqo 165,792 lilt 177.79& 163,505 1896 211'699 ,097 - ! 249,44 illL " 274,806 illl " 250,77" urn ::::: Potatoes are so high that the short crop will probably return more money to the farmer than ever before. |