FARM AND GARDEN NOTES. NOTES OF INTEREST ON AGRI- CULTURAL TOPICS. Protect the Barn Swallows--Stomes Under Apple Trees--Hard HoelngTo Rid the Poultry House of Lice, Eic. —— Protect the Bara Swallows, The barn swallows, which were for- merly very numerous about farm | buildings are great destroyers of in | sects. In some parts of England they | were depended upon by hop growers | to destroy hop files, They subsist wholly upon Insects which they catch | an the wing and are fond of all Kinds | of gnats, moths, beetles and many | other kinds. During recent years the swallow has been driven away from its home by the English sparrow, a fact to be regretted, Stones Under Apple Trees. i A great deal! of ripened fruit that might be saved is spoiled by bruising on left under from previous plowing. The ideal place for an apple to fall is on a thick grassy turf, making not only a soft place to | fall on, but a hiding place under the grass. If the ground under the tree is cultivated, after removing all the loose stapes, spread a layer of straw as far as the branches extend for the fruit to fail This had better be delayed unti! near time for the frait ripen, it will Keep the surface moist induce a growth of close the surface, which will Jured next Tree always very water than the top and are therefore rozZen, stones the irees 1. the to else and to routs in winter. be being frozen are They absorb more growth of more injured when f more water in them by rots porous, tis fhe ree, as there is to be expanded. The stake Is often only slighfly insert. od In the soll, but it Is sure to be heaved up by frost the following win- ter, and that will pull the fence out of shape If not driven down below the frost line. At the bottom a tone large enough to fill the space between post and stake should be laid for the lower rail to rest on, If it Is not Intended fo be plg or lamb proof there may be 4 space of a foot or more between the first and second rails, Four strong rails fastened by wires will make as strong a straight fence a8 80 muy boards against cattle or horses, The in is that the board fence requires a post in the middle cOxt rail fence Ix strong enough If wired to the post at each end. One advantage such a fence is that by unwiring the posts and taking out the rails a passage way may made between fields almost anywhere wide enough to br Sore Eyes in Ducks. I had been neglecting the care of my Peking one spring. 1 had neglected to supply them with a proper amount of sand and shell, but had fed too much concentrated food and they had been deprived of pure water at times It was but a short time until I noticed of them alling, Some seemed rheumatic, while others had matter protruding from the corners of their eyes, and in a day or so thore was a hard bail of whitish substance gath ered at the outer corners of the eyes of several, became bad eves entirely filled or adhered tightly together. After this they became in flamed and swollen, and had I not be Soe Rome at] their gun treatment at ones | think It might have resulted in gray film over the eye ball At first notice of trouble | began giv The Benefit of Experiment Farms. The agricultural experiment stations are doing a splendid work in the way of experimentation, but every farmer ought to experiment for himself. Not that he should go into expensive, ditt cult experiments, but into ordinary ex perimentation to test the value of dif . fruit and veg there ferent vari et ®les. Probably farmer’in a thousand, perhaps not one in ten thousand, who can say that he is t and profitable variety, or that h the eties of § is not one growing the bes most ¢ is using best means to keep up the fertility of his land; and ong an in the majority of cases no ceurate information for there is an indi viduality about the farm There are these advantages to come | give him a upon these points from conducting experiments: Obtain ing the most ad information re garding the value of different and new varieties, the t method of cultiva tion and of the way to maintain the fertility—not of his neighbor's land or of some experiment station land but of his own land. Experimentation is sure to result in the adoption of the most economical methods of farm management, [It in the produce of pure seed. ultimately quantities curate roe best reunites tion in such furnish “S OWn use, us the best of seed for the but a surplus to remunerative price. An acre on the road, superior variety planted to a super Or SOWHD to a ff oats or wheat, or lor variety of corn. will n process of growth, will advertise itself, and finally, as the years go by, if the experiments are Kept up, will make the enterprising farmer a profitable business In Ontario thes iperative to rop that what Any other « show it is while have introduced co. imenting, It in i886, and the plan has been in- reasing ia magnitude ever since, To day there are 0.080 Ontario farms on which these co-operative experiments are going on. Every year the Ontario Agricultural and Experiment Union which is the name of the movement publishes the results of the year's ex. | periments, practical experi menters have choroughly tested from six to 210 varieties of nearly ever, crop that is grown, and the reports of the Union are of great interest to agricul ture. The experiments must have been of inestimable benefits to the farmers who conducted them. If it Is profitable in Ontario it would be profitable in the States. ~The Epitomist, exper was be. These Straight Rail Feaces. The old-fashioned rail fence, made to support itself, and occupying seven to eight feet of land between fields, has gone out of date being too wasteful, both of material and land, to be longer tolerated. But the rails re. main, amd by the use of a seven and one-half foot post set two feet deep In the ground with a stake beside it, one. half the rails will make a better fence than all of them would under the old | plan. Hy wiring the rails to boih post and stakes, they can be spread apart at any required distance, especially near the ground, In the old worm fence, the rails had only the width of their ends to keep them apart, as one rested on the other, accumulation of water, especially with soft woods, so that vspally the ends were rotted away while the middle part of the rail was as sound as ever, In making a rail fence the largest, heaviest ralls should be put at the bot. fom and comparatively lignt rails at the top. This with a worm fence, un- less the corners were locked with stakes, made it easy for horses or cows to push off the top rails until they pulled down the fence to where they can jump over it. With a staked straight rail fence this is impossible, as the wiring of the light tep rall should be made stronger than any- where else. A line of barbed wire at the top will also prove an advantage, as touching the nose to a sharp barb quickly anuses t animal to with draw. If the work of setting posts is done early in spring while the seil is moist, both the posts and stakes may as be driven down as deeply as needed. The mash wax made melst (not slop py) by mixing the ground oats with the tea produced by boiling common clover hay in a large tank. This tea 1 find to be a good substitute for the preparsd lover clover meal for those who have « hay. I gave them all they wanted of this as a drink, and at other had witer, what tea once a day they always them the tea first, my usual times fresh but I gave drink of I began at once feed of bles, such as cooked potatoes and tu nips, with plenty of mixed with food, onee a day, Several times 5 they would to amount vegeta sn tid ince 1 noticed ex, but they quick iy disappeared when 1 began feeding [I have described Herald. n have gymptoms of sore oy as Poultry Girains. harvesting When to Cut Small The exact time of «mall grains depends primarily upon the use to which the crop is to be put. With wheat where the straw lars i a secondary consideration or no « i onsideration at all, as is the case in the greater part of the United States, it should be ut when the grain will weigh the To condition cut when the grain i= in On small far § nse! for wheat growing sections of the most Secure this tim advanced dough state where one machine the on varied cording to circumstances, If the cron attasked by the He™an iy, falli onus quently Hittle « much of this injured grain as possible, The binder should be run low in this event, to gather up the fallen heads. Then too, If the crop ix attacked by rust the sooner the crop is in the shock, the bet ter. The longer it stands, the more injury the grain will sustain. If whent is allowed to get too ripe great loss results from shattering when the bundles are bandied. In of all these considerations no definite rule can be given the best time for harvesting wheat, mt each farmer must be governed by cirenmstances, With oats the condition of the straw must be considered as well as that of the grain, ns this makes valuable for age, provided the crop is cut at the proper time and well cured. If the westher is dry, ne is usually the case during oats harvest, ent when on the green order, bind in small bundles, put up in shocks containing not more than tire crop this rule must be ar in siraw ng occurs and becomes more set as the grain matures, [It is cons advisable to girlier as 1 begin cutting a wi O ReCure as the view as 10 oughly dried out. When threshed. the grain may not weigh quite is heavily ax when allowed to stand a week long. er. but the straw will be very nutritions and almost ax valuable as timothy hay for cattle and horses. Some farm. ers prefer to cut their oats with a mow. er and treat it exactly as they do hay. In this case, after it is cut with a mower, it Is raked into windrows and taken directly to the barn or stack. It is not threshed, but the grain and straw are fed together, For young stock and dairy cattle, this Kind of feed, if well cured, is es. pecially desirable. Because of the shortness of the clover crop this sea in this manner. It is necessary when storing to put in some place where otherwise, there will be great loss, The rats not only destroy the grain of the oats, but cut up and mutilate many of the leaves, rendering the forage unpal- atable and unfit for feed. As a rule, most farmers prefer to cut their oats with a binder. For all kinds of small grain the mod. ern self binder does most excellent work. MH cuts everything from flax to the tallest rye. They are now so Simple that almost any one can operate them and they need but little extra attention. Keep well olled, never al. lowing the machine, particnlarly the canvas parts, to get wet. Cover it carefully each night and place in a shed as soon as the harvest is com. pleted. American Agriculturist, The number of children and youth in the United States is 21,082,472, # ~ USES FOR CORN PITH. IN THE WORLD. Defensive Belts of Cellulose--+Novel Utitiza- tion of a Waste Farm Product--~Corn- stalks Found to be Valuable for Many Other Purposes. tion bas been found, which, it is Heved, will make the American navy, in the world. Curiously enough, the material for this improvement comes, not from our seaboard products, but from the waste of Western farms, ts value lies in the fact that it will pre vent a fighting ability from being destroyed even after she has been pierced in a dozen places. Mr. Lewis Nixon, formerly a United States naval constructor and who is now engaged in building warships for the government at Elizabethport, N. J.osays of the pew invention: *The value of some light substance that will preserve the stability of light armored by displacing water that might enter after a projectile has been appreciated by naval constructors ever since we began to bulld steel arin ored vessels. “To meet this need the French orig inated the cellulose, which, vessel's vessels ol tise inflow. After adopted in our Columbia, the various trials it w 3 Thus, New York and 1 Olympia. there are protective decks of ample strength to keep out the