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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Advocate, 1920-2-5, Page 3Address communications to Agronomist, 73 Adelaide St West,'T`oronto The Flock at Lambing Time. j their mothers and allowed. only 'a lit - Plan farm work so the shepherd I tie milk, A tablespoonful of milk of can keep a close watch over the flocks magnesia will help cure the trouble. day and night. Keep ewes about -WI Milk the udder out before letting a lamb away from other stock, and ire lamb nurse. separate pens. Portable lambing pens Orphan lambs can be raised on 4 x 4 or 4 x 6 feet are good for the cow's milk. Until they are three ewe until the lambs are three or found weeks old give each lamb one-half days old. Close openings through: Pint at a feed, and feed four times which lambs might creep and wander E a day. • • away. 1 From the -time they are three weeks After the lamb is born note wheel old until two months old, give one' ther the ewe casts the afterbirth. If i pint at each feed and feed three times she does not she should be washed" a,.day. At six weeks old the laamill begin to eat grain. After they Will out daily with liquid stock dip dilute! are two months old feed a quart of ed one part to 100 parts of water. ilk night and morning and about a Milk the ewe if the lamb does not take ! milk pound of grain for each lamb at all the milk, Give her all the water: she wants, but not in too large quan- noon. titles and not ice cold water, Give grain sparingly: for a few days after How to Feed for Winter Eggs. •. lambing. Let the ewe have clover Too many poultry raisers are feed - or alfalfa hay and a little oats. ing too much grain and not enough When the lamb is a week old the ewe green heed. In the first place, grain must have more feed, and must have is too expensive and in the second plenty from that time until there is place too much food element is burn- an abundance of grass. ed up in reduoing it to a state of When the ewes udder swells, keep digestibility. it milked out and paint it twice a day I have obtained the best results so with tincture of iodine until the far by the following feeding system: swelling begins to go clown. There- The first feed in the morning con - after, paint it once a clay. Lambs sists of whole oats thrown in the should not be allowed to have milk litter. I use about one pound to every from a swollen udder, since the milk twenty-five hens. At nine o'clock 1 is poisonous, Use milk from another L give- the fowls plenty of sprouted oats, ewe or from a ow. which I produce in one of these Sore teats should be washed with modern sprouting machines. It takes a solution of sheep dip, one part to but three or four days to have sprouts twenty-five parts of water. about an inch long. The greatest A lamb too weak to stand should food value in sprouted oats is when get a fill of its mother's milk as soon the sprouts are short. This supplies as possible. If it refuses to nurse, the absolutely necessary green ele- feed it from a bottle, ment in the ration. One of the best ways to warm a At noon I feed a wet mash, com- chilled lamb is to put all but its head posed of equal parts of cornmeal, in a$ warm water as the elbow can ground oats and wheat bran to which .bear, When the Iamb becomes Iively, is added one teaspoonful of salt to rub it briskly with a coarse cloth until every six hens. Then I pour boiling dry. Then feed at, wrap ail but its water over the mash, stirring it thor- nose in a thick cloth or blanket and put it away in a warm place to sleep. Keep it away from its mother no oughly, using about two pounds of water to ono pound of mash. This mash ip then left 'standing an hour longer than absolutely necessary. before being fed. A good deal of the When a ewe will not claim her moisture has evaporated and the boil- ing water puts the mash in a fine digestible condition. In the middle of the afternoon I again feed an ounce of sprouted oats to each fowl. For the last feed in the afternoon I provide for each twenty-five hens two pounds of equal parts cracked corn and buckwheat in the litter. Charcoal, grit and oystershell are before the fowls at all times. Water of a drinkable temperature is pro- vided at all times with the help of a fireless non-freezing drinking foun- tain. Plenty of water and plenty of green feed must be suppled .to the hens if plenty of eggs are desired. lamb rub on her nose and on the rump of the disowned lamb some ,of the ewe's milk. To avoid navel ill in lambs dip the navel cord in a cup of tincture of iodine as soon as the larnb is horn. For sore eyes put a drop of a six- teen per cent solution of argyrol in the eyes once a day. Do this with a medicine dropper. Frothing at the mouth is a sign of acute indigestion in lambs. A table- spoonful of castor-oil is a good rem- edy. White scours in lambs is caused by digestive disorders. Lambs with this trouble should be taken away from Efficiency on the Farm. Efficiency on the farm saves: 1. Human labor. 2, Time, 3. Money— by having: Gas ;engine for pumping water for the housewife, and for stock; ,for grinding feed; for milking;, for separ- ating the cream. Houses for all farm machinery and wagons. Sanitary hog pens, houses and cow barns. All buildings painted when in need. A silo, There is no room on thef ace of the earth for a poor hen. There is lots of room in the earth, but none on top of it. Success with poultry is not so much in getting a great quantity of eggs as it is in selling those eggs profit- ably. Seek the best market possible; having found that market, stick to it. Hens enjoy pumpkins. Cut 'the pumpkins in halves or quarters. Give to the flock and see how much is left by night. Pumpkins are an excellent food for hens. It is said that the seeds have a particularly good effect upon laying hens, To keep off "cooties," I used to paint my chicken roosts and egg boxes with 'kerosene, but this year I wrapped tar paper around the roosts, tied it fast with string, and Gut a piece of the' paper to fit the bottom of the nests. I was not trou- bled with lice the entire summer. Tightly -built houses are too warm, and are likely to become damp. If moisture collects on the walls, or if the house smells damp, there is not enough ventilation. In that case a window or a door should be left open: There is little danger of freezing the hens by giving them a little air; if the air is dry and their bloat is in good condition, they are able to keep, „warm. After harvesting our grain we rake together that, which has dropped and would otherwise be wasted, and place It on a platform that we burnt in the barn. The bottom of the platform' is not tight. Hens that scratch on the, platform work a lot of the graindown underneath. Other hens pick it up. , I prefer this plan to dumping this grain On a pile for the hens to work on; this -plan helps to make eggs. ° The egg crop fell off just about one-third when we began to shut up our hens in September to keep them Cut of the growing, crops. Being new t the, business we wondered what ad happened. Now we know it was the lack of green feed, 'bugs and exer- else which came with the confinement. When we keep our hens in Off the rase range now, we :.give. more ,green Stuff, more meat feed' and a larger dand in which to exercise. It makes great difference in egg 'production. In running my incubator, when the beat gets too high just at the last, I dip a cloth hi cold water, waging it dry and wrap It around the pipe at the front, . tucking it up well so that :it does not touch the eggs. This eepla the egg chamber, and as the water evaporates it puts moisture into the machine, softening the shells and bringing off a better hatch. If the beat is not sufficiently reduced repeat the process as the cloth dries, This has helped me to make a number of good hatches when the heat seemed about to get beyond control, and the eggs were tbo near hatching to bear cooling outside the machine. Improved implements. A balanced ration for the animal. A place to save all manure. A system of rotation and stock farming, to preserve the fertility of the soil, alfalfa and sweet clover on the farm. A definite plan to work by. After heavy snow -storms it is a good plan to shake the snow from evergreen branches. Too much- snow is likely to • cause them to break down. Well -rotted manure scattered over the lawn will hold the snow and give better grass. Have an extra alarm clock to take with you when you go out tothe workshop to do any job. Shape your plans by that clock. Are rabbits or mice enjoying the tender wood of your apple trees? Better examine the trees and take steps to destroy the rodents. No more profitable work for a stormy day than to go over the farm accounts thoroughly and see how you stand with the world. It will help you to shape your plans for the new season. This is the time to study spraying. spraying is serious business and the spraying campaign should be well worked out in advance. Know what insects or diseases you are going to combat, get the best materials to meet them and learn when and how best to apply the materials. More farmers -than a few are going back to the woodlot for their fuel these days. They are setting out the coal -stove and putting in. wood - burners. By doing that they save some money and get more comfort out of the wood; for there is no warmth like that which comes from good body wood. Boys and Girls Come First. All over the land small feet are trudging daily to their tasks at school. In the country the distance is often long, and the prospect at the end of the journey not always inviting. It is a peculiar thing that we build fine houses for our cows, pigs and poultry, and yet are often content with miserable shacks in which our youngsters are to, get the rudiments of learning. Time will come when this will all be changed. We will recognize that the boys and girls are the most important product of the country. The country not only furn- ishes its own future population, but the major portion of our city popula- tion as well. We are beginning to recognize the fact that an uneducated country population can not compete on equal terms with an educated city popula- tion. Consolidated rural ,chools, Were the Schools to Blame? Many theories have been advanced concerning the cause of the numerous physical defects discovered during' the examination of recruits for the army and navy and it is quite pos- Bible that our modern school system may be at fault. As most of the handicaps have been present since childhood I firmly be- liever that a system which forces the attendance of children at an early age, and also the conditions under which the children are placed while attending school, has much to do with physical deficiencies in later life. It has been proved that the aver- age, natural gain in weight of chil- dren is less during school months than during vacation. Too many hours of close application are requir- ed• for the different ages; especially the younger children, and there is too little pure air for those who are not robust; and for those who are indoors much of the time. between school .hours. Too much fatigue, mental es- pecially,. means "poison," and poison hinders the mental and physical de- velopment. I can do no better than to quote from. Oscar W. Hallin, a teacher of ' ripe experience: "Poets used to de- light in extolling the card -free happi- ness of childhood.' But times are changing. The prosaic business age in_which we live has as little respect for the joys of childhood as it has for the beauty and sublimity of the forests. Before 'children have fairly ventured beyond the nursery' titres - d h sh r d into the mad not key are u e e rush and worry- of a `strenuous life.' As a result we find them facing the. responsibilities of adults before they can ` share the privileges : of grown- up people. Theyare stunted and overworked physically and mentally, ant thereby hastened to a premature old age and death." Dr. L. W. St. John, There are over 400,000. hymns` ex- tant, Covering „more than'two hundred languages ands dialedtse THE CHEERFUL CHEF3J The world-mays'eerr , rather unfair and; it Nrt..in 15vt I E'eel it'9 more. dignified. not to core plain. carrying the pupils through the first two years of the high school, should take the place of the little one -room affair. This permits some division of the pupils into grades, and above all it makes possible the employment of well-trained teachers. The little, red schoolhouse will soon be a thing of the past in most localities; its place is being taken by modern struc- tures, equipped for efficient work. (By the way, did any one ever see a schoolhouse painted red?) Competent teachers, well -arranged and properly -equipped buildings, and attractive school grounds go a long way toward, removing the irksome- ness of the early years at school. They create a sense of community pride, and enable country boys and girls to hold up their heads and look city students squarely in the face, as they have a right to do. Farmer's Account Book. Farming is a business. If it doesn't pay the farmer wants to know why it doesn't pay, Some record of re- ceipts and expenses, together with an inventory taken at the beginning and' the end of the farmer's year, must be kept if lie is to find out why it doesn't pay. Keep a record of your farm business. Find out how much you are making and why you are not snaking more. T e Commission of Conservation, Ottawa, will send you, free on request, a well -bound account. book in which to keep your Farm Record. You will find it very simple, and a great aid to success in farm- ing, Send for the Farmer's Account Book to -day. The Welfare of the Home "Thirteen pounds and seven and three-quarter ounces. She's '„ gained ten ounces and a half this week," the. gray -gowned nurse lifted the tiny baby from the scales and, with a look of satisfaction, handed it Oita flushed and radiant mother,• "Doesn't look mueh like the wraith yo>r brought be here two months ago, does she?" It was at a regular'session of the baby clinic. "It's just a miracle," the mother said gratefully, "I never can be glad enough I brought her to the clinic," ' "Miracle, nothing," laughed the, nurse, "It's just knowing how to feed her right and having the will to do it after you are told. Better take her over in that corner out of the draft to dress her." An Easy Riddle. Soft and fluffy, down they come, White and very feathersome. Bobby says they're butterflies Fluttering in companies. Edith says they're angels'' birds. Harry says they're fairy herds. Walter thinks they're winter bees ,Swarming over all the trees. Soft and silent, chilly, white— Have you guessed the answer right? Exports must pay our war debt and so the encouragement of live- stock farming to add to our export trade is a national benefit. The Profitable Tractor is the Busy One A horse that does no work when horse labor is needed on the farm is far from profitable; the profitable horse is the one that works the great- est possible number of days in a year. Likewise, the profitable tractor is the busy one.' If a tractor can be used for only one job, and only during a short period, its value is less to the user than if it were used for various jobs throughout the year. Tractors, to be profitable, must be kept busy whenever possible. Of the work which a tractor can do to good advantage perhaps plow- ing stands first. From a survey made on twenty-seven farms on which. tractors were used, the following crops predominated: Oats, corn, wheat, clover, potatoes and hay. Of the kind of work done by trac- tors on those farms• the following operations were done on the greatest number of farms—plowing, disking, harrowing, hauling, rolling, sawing wood, filling silo and grinding feed. Besides these the tractor was recom- mended for baling hay, loading hay, spreading manure, harvesting grain, pulling stumps, threshing and hulling clover. Not all of these kinds of work could be found on one farm, of course, but a number of them might be in- cluded • in- the list. - Large Tractors foe Large Farms. Where the size of farm will' permit, the large tractor will use the oper- ator's time to best advantage. On the other hand, the smaller tractile. is less injurious to the soil and is adapt- ed to more varied conditions. Where severe conditions are to be met in plowing,• it is not safe to figure on less than ten -belt horse -power per plow. The belt horse -power of a three -plow tractor should be between twenty and thirty. A tractor of this size and weight can also be used to good advantage for other kinds of work, such as disking, harrowing and threshing. Tractors Should Not Race, Select a tractor which will travel from two to three miles an hour. A road speed of four miles an hour might be selected, but the occasions on which that speed could be used would be rare;" certainly never with heavy loads, for the racking strain would be too much on, wagons. • Other mothers crowded around with babies of assorted sizes, undress- ed and wrapped in the little blankets provided by the clinic, awaiting their turn to have baby weighed before the doctor came in. There were all sorts of conditions represented. Babies in perfect health whose mothers believed in preventive measures and wanted to be sure they were feeding right as they went along. Babies like the first who had been under direction long enough to begin to .pick up, but still show the effects of a wrong start. Babies just brought for the first time, whose pinched, weazened faces and plaintive little wail told all too plainly to the experienced eye the effect of wrong feeding. There must have been fifty mothers with infants in the room, and wandering through the crowd were two-year-old brothers and sister's who had to be brought along. It was an interesting crowd viewed from any agle, full of pep and noise and human nature, from the two mothers who. wig -wagged their disc gust at the crowding and elbowing of a third, to the small son of the aggressive mother who showed his devotion to her side by pulling the Burls of the other women's small daughters. But the greatest interest lay in the purpose underlying the clinic the attitude of the city in saying it is fully as important to give money to start children right as it is to keep up courts and jails to correct them after they go wrong. The baby clinic is maintained by the city, plus a few private contributions, and any mother of whatever station in life is privi- leged to go there to get advice on the care of her children under five. A staff of doctors donate their services and instruct in the proper method of feeding. If the baby needs further attention, operations or medical care, the mother is told so. If she can af- ford to pay for the care she is requir- ed to do it, if not, the city takes care of the case. Only instructions in diet- ing are given free to all who come. s Working with the clinic is a corps of nurses who go out to homes when it is impossible to bring the child to the doctor. One baby who was brought to the attention of the nurses too late to save its life had twenty- two calls from nurses in six weeks, and a part of the time two nurses were together working to save the little life. Not many cases are lost, however, unless there are other com- plications besides wrong feeding. Even the most hopeless looking tots are brought along if it is simply a question of what to feed. One thir- teen -months- old baby was brought in who weighed .only ten pounds and ;six ounces. She had never had a tooth,. could not sit alone, and was altogether as helpless a bit of future womanhood as you could ever find. A diet of modified milk, thoroughly cooked cereals, and orange and prune juice was prescribed. In six. weeks. Miss Baby had perked up amazingly, had suspicion of color in her cheeks, posi-' Lively smiled when you looked at her, and even acted as though she „night cut a tooth some day. Then there was the five -months -old baby whose mother had to Live with grandma. Grandma had strong no- tions on "giving them a taste of real food." "Peal food," however, was not baby food for this young man, and he somehow didn't thrive on grand. ma's formula. Mother took him to the clinic and learned that milk is the only real baby food for a five-month'a old boy. She took her lesson to heart and insisted on trying the doctor's, way, so long as grandma's way hadn't proven altogether a success. Six weeks of clinic feding converted even grandma, and now baby is as rosy and fat as the best. Many pitiful cases among the older children are treated, and warped lives straightened. There was the four- year-old boy with club feet. His par- ents couldn't pay for an operation, but the attending physician told them the city could. The child was oper- ated on, one leg is now perfectly straight, the other ie still in a cast, but the child has no trouble in walk- ing. When you hear all the things ac- complished by the clinic you wonder just why they call it the "Baby Clinics For while it is primarily intended as a place where :pothers can get .advice on the care of babies, it seems ass though the nurses thought they had to take the whole family under their wings, There was the mother who brought her eighteen -months,' -add boy down. The nurse took one short look at the child and two long ones at the mother. Then she asked a few kindly questions. She found out that the mother was again in a delicate condi- tion, that she was tired all the time, could not do even the lightest house- work, and lived in conditions not of the best. She advised the mother to go to the anti -tuberculosis society for an examination. The attendants found that the woman was developing tuberculosis. They prescribed a rest period morning and afternoon, some time daily in the open air, got her to sleep alone in a large room with three windows open, and prescribed a diet. The mother made her visit to the clinic in August. In October she wen in good condition and able to do her owh housework, Every week, in fact, every day brings to light even asimportant cases of human beings helped to health and enjoyment of life by in-. struction in right living. Can there be any better way. to spend a part of the tax money? It doesn't cost nearly as much to main- tain clinics to keep people in health as it does to keep up hospitals and homes, with their staff of nurses and help; to take care of the invalided. The new way, prevention rather than cure, is surely the best. Why should not clinics such as this be established in every rural district through Canada? 1 HOW BOSS GOT HOME row morning; what shall I do with him ?" Here was a puzzI.e. Tom and his father talked the matter over hur- riedly. They had no way of going for the dog themselves, and so what were they to do? At length Tom had an idea. He whirled back to the tele- phone. "Is your cottage near Picnic Point?" he asked. "Bight on the Point," was the answer. "It's that cottage that we passed just before the wagon stopped," Tom Toin never knew how • he became separated from Boss at the corn roast but when the time carne to start home the little dog had • disappeared. The wagon waited while Tom called and whistled. But he could hear no answering bark, though he called a long time and listened with all his might. said to his father. . Then he said to "We shall have to go without the span, "After I speak to my dog, will you take him straight, to the pic- nic ground at the end of the Point? Maybe he can trace us from there." The man agreed. Presently he said, "You can talk now. I'm holding him up to the telephone." "Hey, Boss!" Tom cried. , There was a little squeal of delight at the other end of the line, and then a loud, "Bow -wow!" "Coned home, sir!" said Tom. "Here, Boss, here!" "He's wild with joy," said the man, "I'l+l take him down to the picnic place now and, see if he can't pick; up the trail." Later on in the evening, Tom heard a sharp scuffling sound on the porch) It was followed by quick scratches at the door. He flung the door open, and Bose dashed into the room, a leaping, wiggling, joyful brown ball. He was so happy that he could hardly keep still long enough to eat. ' Tom could not stop laughing at his antics. "But be careful how you run. away again," he warned him. "An.' other time you aright not be he a place, where I could telephone to ,you," ' hint," said one of the older boys. Boss was a young dog, not much accustomed to find his way by using his nose, and Tom felt very much worried. All the way home the boy kept wondering what the little dog would do when he cane back from his run in the woods and found every- one gone. He doubted whether he should ever see Boss again. "If I only hadn't let him come!" he thought. The other boys laughed at Tom's anxious face. "Ten -to one Boss will be, home when you get there,"- they said. But there was no sign of Boss at home. That night heavy clouds gathered and the wind howled dis- mally. Tom stood for a long tithe with his face pressed against the win- dow. "Boss will miss his comfort- able kennel," he said. Just then the telephone rang: "Corrie here, Toml" his father called when he had answered it. "Here's news of Boss, I think.." Tom rushed into the hall and grasped the receiver. A pian was speaking. "I've been calling up first one person in your village and then another to find out Who owns a lit - Salt' From Ocean Water., Experiments in Norway' with a view tie brown beagle dog with a white to extracting salt from ocean water'by,} face." moans of electricity, have been sue "I do!" cried Tom. "Yes, air, 1 eessful, and. two salt factories will bat •ted for stats ui' ase int e ne do!" - ,, star P P b ar,. „ u future ure . 'Well, the man went on, he strayed ,into my. place a little while ago, and he looks pretty homesick.ie bvhnny-oak�' I'm leaving this cottage early to -mor - 1 in It peace, thanetter onto mliineseon pieJoits abxollil � Y gr 1• A mistaken notion is sometimes held about plowing. In plowing, a certain amount of energy goes to cut- ting the soil, some of it to pulverizing, and a large part of it to lifting and turning over the furrow slice. When too high a plowing speed is used, a great deal of unnecessary work is done in throwing the furrow slice over on the plowed ground instead of lay- ing it over into a smooth, well-turned furrow. As much work can be done at slow speed, as with high traveling speed. The engine is capable of only a de- finite amount of work. If this power is used up in speed it will be neces- sary to sacrifice in the number of plows which can be pulled or in the size of load which can be hauled. Pulling a larger load at a slow ospeed does not necessitate moving the trac- tor such a great distance to get the work done, which will be a conveni- ence to the operator at }east. Paints to Consider in Selecting. There are some features of con- struction which are essential, if good results are to be secured with a trac- tor. The ,following list includes most of these features: 1. Simplicity. 2. Durability: a. ,Good material. b.Good workmanship. e. Good design. 3. Accessibility. 4. Interchangeability. 5. Protection of working parts. 6. Adaptability. a. Plowing. b. Tillage. c. Hauling. d. Belt. 7. Ease of operation. a. Turning . small radius. b. Visibility of work. ,Easily manipulated. &l. Safety of operation. 8. Weight. a. Heavy enough' to secure traction. b. Light enough to prevent en jury to soil. 9. Cost. • a. Initial cost. b, Cost' of operation, c. Maintenance cost. Simplicity, of cowrie, is taken for granted. { Fa!S•��Atn per",.+.++� �+wA.� .du.0 dlWl43 -1--. • 4 1 1 • 1 4 a 1 r