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DOMESTIC FERTILIZERS BEST. t •• ,» 15 STORAGE OF FARM tft^PLEMGNTSa WORTHY HELPMEETS CHARMINQ WIVES OF WELL KNOWN CONGRESSMEN. wi'W vfi-i THE DAIRYMAN'S ICEHOUSE. PeeollM- lalM Amnlag (HMai flMMy Washington---Additions to th« son's Social Circle--P«r*ouI SkctahM of Women of KmI Worth rm ̂jjfe STAR1 6 KV. f V I# S" * 1 iiW^* * * ? • ' , k. - <r /•iflv * Tt* fe-s . •i feV! . V A Virginia Farmer Claims That Theao Am Cheapest ud Most Durable. Good chemical authority tells us that |«n acre of wheat yielding 18 bushels of -grain abstracts firom the soil for the grain alone, to say nothing of the straw, the : following amounts of important mineral elements.- Phosphoric acid, 17 pounds; potash, IS; soda, 6; lime, 16; i&agnesia, 118; chlorine, t \ sulphuric acid, 8.. Frac­ tions are omirted for the sake of sim­ plicity. A Virginia correspondent of The t Country Gentleman writes: Assuming these data to be approxi­ mately correct, how shall the farmer , fertilize the soil in order to secure this amount of grain, prevent depletion and I at the same time do it in the most eco- C nomical way? This is an important, prac- :i' tical question, and the practical farmer i desires a practical rather than a scien­ tific answer. Are there domestic sources J of these elements, and are they cheap or : best? Animal manures, wood ashes, common f salt, bones and land plaster will furnish all these elements (and more) in quanti­ ties ample for all the requirements of U any crop. Of these, all but the salt and j; plaster are to be had from the farm. We f contend, too, that they can be had in ' quantity great enough for the demand at less cost than the equivalents can be bought for in the market. Wood ashes give us potash, soda, lime ̂ and magnesia; salt yields chlorine and ' soda; plaster supplies sulphuric acid and I lime, and bones contain a high per cent of phosphoric acid, to say nothing of ; other useful parts. To narrow it down w still more, wood ashes and salt alone will £ insure a good yield of wheat on almost v any medium farm land. Farms containing rough forest land have the source of ashes in ample quan- ; tity. There is no better or more durable fertilizer than wood ashes. Salt is cheap, and almost all the Atlantic coast lands need it. A very small application is enough. • Animal manures, mixed with litter, < refuse hay, sweepings and other waste •: material about a place, ought to accu- ; mulate in great quantity. Careful hus­ banding of the domestic resources of manure will in most cases render the rfe fanner independent of the factories. Destroying; Grain Weevils. v 'c "Weevils may be destroyed by the va- J por of bisulphide of carbon. It is heavier than air; hence will descend between the ^ kernels of grain, and is easy of applica­ tion, One and one-half pounds of bisul- phide are said to be sufficient for one ton f of grain. Dr. Eiley gives the following wi method of applying it: A ball of tow is tied to a stick of sufficient length to Teach the middle of the bin containing x the grain. The tow receives the charge -y; of bisulphide like a sponge and is at once ? plunged into the grain and left there, the mouth of the bin being tightly closed. When necessary, the stick may be re- '•j\ newed. The action of carbon bisulphide lasts in ordinary cases six weeks, after which period a fresh charge is required, if! The bisulphide is said to do no harm to |j grain, either for culinary purposes or for seed, provided that not too much is used and its action is not too long con­ tinued. ' Cellar Windows and Screens. For use during the cold weather The American Agriculturist advises that cel­ lar windows be made double by putting glass upon both sides of the sash. Thus made, the expense is nearly one-half more than when made single lighted, but it admits plenty of light to the cel­ lar, without the risk of freezing. The air chamber between the glass acts as a nonconductor of heat. This is far bet­ ter than using a single thickness of gla ss, and each winter stuffing it full of straw or other material, which makes the cel­ lar as dark as a dungeon. An outside guard should be placed at each window, and nothing will prove better for this than a strong wire screen. It should be of heavy wire and not over a quarter- inch mesh. For convenience nail the woven wire to a light frame and keep it painted, as its position causes it to rust •ery rapidly unless thus protected. 2*#.' "i , % ' ' !} K 'f i "• ' fes,, , v-' • Hint to Corn Haiken. There is a great difference between the teal nerve and action of persons. Some are too slow to ever become expert at, any kind of quick work, while others have plenty of nerve and action, but can­ not control themselves. To overcome this trouble in husking corn Farm and Field advises getting an ear in the left hand before throwing the husked ear out of the right. This keeps a steady motion. In looking away from your work to see where your basket is you lose sight of your next ear and lose a little time in finding it again. The ear being in the left hand, as the empty hand comes back from the basket the ear is up in po­ sition to be struck by the peg on the right hand. After a few days' practice in this way any person with common ability can husk from five to eight bush­ els an hour and bind the fodder. ifv A Word About Corner!bs. Not a few farmers make the mistake of putting the corncrib too near the ground. When near the ground, the corn is apt to absorb moisture and to mold, and the rats are more apt t * abound. The rail pen is not pretty, bu if properly made there is no better crib, says The Country Gentleman. It shoul 1 be set upon posts or stone pillars an 1 not be placed on logs for a foundation. The rats are sure to burrow about the logs. Of course a crib should have a rainproof roof. Such a roof can be made of boards, the cracks being stripped. The board should not be nailed down, but weighted down with straight, heavy poles. Then the boards can be turned! upside down occasionally to correct the, warp of the sun. Corn ought not to be< cribbed until it is dry down to the cob. *mnr!4e a Dry, A iry Shelter and Store Wall Cleaned and Oiled. Upon storing farm implements In proper condition depend.- in no small degree the success of farming. The man who provides a iry, airy shelter for farm tools and machines, and puts them in it when they are not in use. has done a wise and profitable thing. But he may have done only half of what he might and should do for the preservation and good work of his tools and machines. He should also put the tools and machines away in good condition. This includes freedom from dirt. The plow, for ex­ ample, put away coated with mud will rust and rot, though in a good shelter, and such a coating is yet more harmful to the delicate parts of machines. Though bright steel surfaces are clean, they will probably rust unless coated with oil in some form, and to be sure that even clean wood does not rot one must coat it with paint or oil. For coat­ ing metal surfaces coal oil or beef tallow is good. Of course the tallow should be applied in a liquid condition^ It will pay to coat rough, but unpainted metal sur­ faces as well as polished ones, For farm tools and machines, mineral paint is bet­ ter than artificial pigments, and brown mineral paint is very cheap indeed. Any one ought to be able to mix it. Use only boiled linseed oil, and the best is certain­ ly the cheapest, or one can buy ready, mixed paints of good quality at reason­ able prices. Ono should have two brushes --a large one for ordinary surfaces and a small one for narrow surfaces or small corners. It is advisable to put away all tool& and machines in condition for work- plows, hoes, harrows or sickles--si and with all breaks repaired and w< parts strengthened. There will be more time for this at the close than at the be­ ginning of the season's work, and then one has the comforting assurance that as soon as the season permits he may be­ gin work. When one puts away the im­ plements just as they leave the field, i; is often found that it has been forgotten that Bome must be mended and others sharpened, and this is not recollected un­ til they are brought out for work. Then valuable time must be lost in going to the blacksmith, says a correspondent in The American Agriculturist. Wintering Bees Under 8now. An apiarian in Gleanings In Bee Cul­ ture says that if the hives are covered two-thirds the way up the brood cham­ ber it is a great advantage, but if the hives are covered two-thirds the way up the cap or cover, or completely over, it is a positive damage to the bees and worse than no snow at all. The difficulty seems to be that as soon as the hives are covered with snow the warmth of the ground, combined with the warmth of the bees, makes it so warm that the bees become uneasy, go to breeding and consume large quantities of honey, tnus distending their bodies and using up their vitality, causing them to die of old age during February, March and April, while the voung bees have not the usual strength and vitality of beee hatched in September and October to withstand the rigors of winter, so spring dwindling and death are |t^pe- sult.--American Bee Journal. A Good Milking Stool. ^ • Following is the description of a milk­ ing stool which so greatly pleased a Maryland farmer that he wants others to try it. He says: I took a white pine board 18 inches long and about the width of my pail, with one end cut out to fit the pail; then a strip of hickory an inch wide and a quarter inch thick, long enough to form a hoop for the pail, the ends of the strip, nailed to the sides of the stool; two bat­ tens, one just behind the pail, the other at back end of the stool; two legs in the front batten and one behind, and about the middle a convenient hole for the hand to carry by. Points in its favor are that the man sits at ease while doing his work, and there is no danger of his milk being disturbed by the cow stepping about. The Best Poultry Crosses. Opinions differ as to what breeds and crosses are the best business fowls. A writer in The Fanciers' Journal has se­ lected the Light Brahmas for roasting fowls, the Black Minorcas for eggs and the Black Langshans crossed by the Black Minorca for broilers. The Black Minorcas used are not iBtrictly pure bred, they having an outcross with Langshan to give them extra hardiness and larger bodies. The Light Brahmas are used both in their purity and crossed by In­ dian Game. But there are other good breeds that can be selected, notably the Plymouth Rock, the Wyandotte, the Houdan and the Leghorn, and with prob­ ably as good results as this writer ob­ tains with his selections. How to Repair Fence posts. An exchange tells us of a careful farm­ er who, when his grape trellis posts rot­ ted off, dug down into the earth where the post was still solid, and then cut the post half in two a foot or 15 inches be­ low the ground and then fastened to this half an upright post of the height de­ sired. If the post below was mostly rot­ ted off, he used to reverse the^post, put­ ting the top side in the ground and then mortise to it above the surface. In this way he made each post do double duty. The rotting off of posts is almost always just at the surface, and by putting bolts through each half and thus fastening them together the end will last as long as did the original posts at the surface. Things to Do. Mulch the spinach for spring lightly. Top dress rhubarb with manure, bone meal and muriate of potash. Clear up the garden generally and get ready for spring crops. Draw manure to compost heaj| sf |o the field. - Protect parsley from snow and ex­ treme cold by a board cap or inverted trough. Celery not well protected is to be gathered early and trenched in or stored in root cellar. Build It Mo* and Han It Bieedy to Bo- eeive the Ice. There is a saying that the luxuries of one generation become the necessities of the next. This is especially true as to the use of ice in various ways and es­ pecially in the dairy. We can get along without it, if we have an abundance of cold water, but it is handy everywhere and especially needful on farms with a limited supply of water. In my own experience 1 found a creamer almost useless without it. So I set to work during the winter, some years since, to build one. And to the end that others may avoid my mistakes I will relate my experience. As I do not keep over 10 cows I was told A small icehouse would do well enough, so I put one up 8 by 13 with eight foot posts. The ice kept well enough in one sense, but there was not enough to last through the season. It took far more ice than I had supposed to cool two or three cans of milk. I could get through oo E M 16 Ft- CREAttER S- SHE IF 5 : DAIRYMAN'S ICEHOU83. the summer months, but there was much warm weather in the foil, and the cream would not rise without, so 1 got ice from those who had a better supply and did not happen to need it. But as it was sometimes difficult to get I went to work to enlarge the ice- honse. I ought to have taken off the roof, but it was easier to build on the end than one side, so I added eight feet more, keeping four feet of the length as a place for a creamer. The stock of ice, some 14 loads, will answer, if rightly husbanded, up to the middle of October, but there are w ai in days after that, and if one is dependent on ice alone to cool the milk he may count on heavy losses, sometimes rising as high as 60 per cent of the cream. So far am I convinced of this that 1 believe that if some farmers who are trying to cool milk with water alone were to test the skimmilk with a Bab- cock milk tester they would hardly sleep nights until they had made some ar­ rangements for storing ioe. Were I to build anew I would make the storage room 16 feet square, outside measure. If more room was wanted, 1 would make the posts 10 or 12 feet high. I would have a room for the creamer, 4 feet inside, in addition, making the ex­ treme length 20 feet by 16 in width, ac­ cording to the accompanying plan. The ice could be put in through the door, or, if more convenient, through openings in the rear end. In the latter case it would be necessary to close them with double doors. In practice I have found it convenient to slide the ice through the little room into the storage room, putting in planks (at O) and pack­ ing with sawdust as fast as filled. For lumber rough hemlock is good enough for such a building of wood. More expensive material is thrown away. For studding I would use 2 by 6, cover inside and out and fill the space between the boarding with sawdust, well ram­ med down. Rough boards are good enough for roof. All that is wanted is to keep the sun and rain out, and be sure and leave openings at the gables for ventilation. One of the most active forces in melting the ice is likely to be a column of heated air over the ice. In cutting ice I prefer that from 8 to 12 inches thick. Cakes 18 by 24 inches are a good size to handle, but they must be cut so that a certain number will fill a certain space, leaving not less than six inches between the mass of ice and the sides of the house. In sawing the ice I use a board to mark the course of the saw one way and endeavor to get a man who can saw straight the other way, measuring off each block, for I find it is much easier to pack them if the blocks are cut true.--J. G. Fargo in Pjp^cal Dairyman. Jerseys In the Soatk There is a superstition in some quarters that Jersey cows will not thrive in the south. Grade Jerseys certainly will if the cross be of native southern blood. But Mrs. W. G. McGee of Raleigh has had admirable success with full bloods also, as evidenced by the following note clipped from Hoard's Dairyman: The cows have only a small city lot for exercise, but with plenty of good water and a rich grain mixture, composition known only to the compounder, a feed merchant of the city, they manage to bring net dollars to their owners. Here are the yields and percentages of fat found for one milking, Aug. 14: Usual yield. Per cent Calle Pink Liela Placid... Bessie.... fat. 6.70 3.80 7.20 4.00 6.60 Pounds fat. .627 .475 1.051 1.009 .572 Pink cow. Quarts. 7» 8 S 11 . m These are Jerseys attd grades, is mostly native and a farrow Liela is oi:9-quarter Guernsey and three- quarters Jersey* while Placid is a full Jersey and looks like the St. Lambert family, though her breeding was not learned. Mrs. McGee has recently pur­ chased a "Baby" separator, and some of the skimmilk from i: tested but a faint trace of fat by Babcock tester. In nine of the trials between sweet and sour cream churning at the Iowa station it was found that the sour cream yielded 3 per cent more Gutter than the sweet cream did. (.Copyright, 1808, by American Press »Hfr tiou.] Having been, as a general thing, the chief lady in her social circle at home, the new congressman's wife does not find the rules governing official society in Washington all that she could wish. Some of these rules are not very clearly defined, but one of them is. The new­ comer must call upon those ladies whose husbands have been in congress longer than hers, or they will not know, "offi- MSM: - v. s'i m _ood rbe Grocer said, We 1! ccrlaif?lu fake »?oother, we use none bub the besi» v'iv: iAiio dli shrewd dealers keep it^re you behind tbc rest IP1 as proffering • i f what we ' njr or xook stove? I/O JOB HfM ft We lave a large stock of the celebrated dally," that she is in the city. She does not like making first calls upon total strangers, but bowing to the inevitable goes bravely forth and does not find it so very disagreeable, after all, for her welcome is most cordial, and there are ever so many nice women doing just what she is. This season she will have plenty of company, for there are a great many new members of congress, and most of them have wives and daughters. The wife of J. Frank Aldrieh, the handsome new representative from the First Illinois district, will be a charm­ ing addition to this season's social cir­ cles. She was Miss Lula Sherman, daughter of General Frank T. Sherman --on General Sheridan's Btaff during the latter part of the war--and granddaugh­ ter of Francii C. Sherman, mayor of Chicago in its earliest years, and again in the sixties. She was born in Chicago and educated at St. Mary's hall, Fari­ bault, Minn., and the Academy of Visi­ tation, Georgetown, graduating from both schools with high honors. She is accomplished in many ways, is well read, a bright and clever writer, a pleas­ ing conversationist, a prominent and popular member of the Woman's club of Chicago, and an earnest worker for the World's fair, which is held not far from her beautiful home in Kenwood, that pretty suburb of Chicago. She is of medium height, good figure and graceful carriage, has blue eyes, eoft, brown hair, clear complexion and two pretty dimples in her cheeks that come and go when speaking. Her man­ ner is very natural and unaffected, and she looks so girlish that one is surprised to see two daughters of 12 and 18 and a boy of 10. Andrew Jackson Hunter of Paris, Ills., one of the two representatives at large from that state, has a wife and daughter with him. Mrs. Hunter is a tall, slender, delicate looking woman, with dark eyes and wavy dark hair which has a thread or two of white in it. Her manner is very pleasant and refined. She was a Miss Fisher of Kentucky. Her mother was a member of the famous Crockett family of that state. Miss Annah Hunter, & charming and attractive girl, bears a marked resem­ blance to her mother. She, too, is tall and slight. She has fine dark eyes, abun­ dant, wavy .dark hair and clear, pale complexion. The wife of General John C. Black, the other representative at large from Illinois, is no stranger to Washington. General Black was commissioner of pen­ sions during President Cleveland's first term. That administration will long be remembered for its charming women. Mrs. Black was one of the most popular and will be warmly welcomed back, was a member of the Ladies' His- ACORN & GARLAND STOVES, A* well aa other makes. Our etovSa give universal satisfaction n o r t h ? o t i n s p e c t i o n * * / . V ^ The Largest Stocfc o: t- • :ov Aati-Rustiog Tiaw*f*> T*bte •verything found in a hardware store. First class n«w work and Repairs in Tin, Copper and Sheet-Im*^ Your trade is respectfully oolicited. JACOB BONSLETT, ;?:1w The above i« a cut of our sew Folding Wacniii* wmeh now be seen at work in the Piaindealer Ofiici®, Our patron8} and those needing such a machine are invited ^ call and see ir at work, ft is simple, easily handled, and tak#i such little power that you cannot notice it. The machine was in by the Bascom Folder f to., of Sidney, O., who have been inj? and selling them for the past eight years, and every machine la fully warrauted for five >ears . If you need such a machine write the ab&ve company for prides, discounts and terms, a sell the machine on the most favorable terms. Or write their Agents Chicago Newspaper Union, Chicago; J. A F.Garret, Syracuse, 1§| Y.; Mather Manfg Co., Philadelphia, Pa.; Marder Luse & Co Chicago; Benton, Waldo & Co,, Milwaukee; Wright. BMtttt * Stillwell, St. Paul; Oeootkin A Son, Toronto. Canada. 7 " THE I-IFE, JDHW1* iflintlN. torical society and found time in spite of many social duties to prepare and read clever and entertaining papers at Its meetings. She also recited unusu­ ally well for an amateur and was often asked to do so. She was born and edu­ cated in Massachusetts, married young and went to live in Illinois, which has since been her home. She is of medium height, with dark hair combed back from a well shaped forehead, expressive darjc eyes and a pleasintr expression. " ' -^4 !,< BEST! 'ECONOMY IS WfiAECH" The babies laugh, because tbe'reoord has been brok-n, and the re<v>rd Aft ih» ti.. 1, Sold in M«H*ary sln«e the 1st day of January, 1993, to the 1st day of Oct., *w"*fS4 . 5 Fourteen Car Loads of Pillabury's Best Plotivw AND IT 8"BILL STANDS AT THE TOP. i'; For Sale by all the Leading Merchants, and attlia Roller Milit We have a good high grade of Flour at f I per Bach, and for the pries it* cfeadanM comparison. Also a full Patent Flour at f 1.05. and we do not exoneratelrtMnml guarantee it equal to other grades that cost more money. Try it and be eonviaeedl To the Farmers of WcHenry and vicinity would eay that we »rr- again prepared to Feed and Woeat Grinding promptly. On wheat w« will guarantee as good a return in and quantity as any custom mill In the Htate of Illinois, and wocld respectfully " need of anything In t*- is line to give us a trial on the above guarantee Bran and Middlings for- Sal©. When in need of Flour leave your order tit the Koitcr Mills and we will <fe the test. «j!f. McHENRY ROLLER MILLS. A - jJ'A • • -» * ' M * - ,3t IS