A Very Successful Garden From a Gardener’s Journal
A gardener explains that gardening can be highly rewarding beyond monetary gain. She details soil prep, bed layout, irrigation from a windmill supply tank, and successive crops. She shares methods for starting plants in a hotbed, using celery, lettuce, and peppers, and describes fence plantings of grapevines, beans, cucumbers, strawberries, cabbage, and tomatoes with crop rotation and seasonal timing.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Rocky Ford
Busy Days in the Orchard Practical advice for pruning and protection
The article offers orchard care tips including safe trimming methods, timing for cutting newly set versus established trees, the value of windbreaks, fertilizer use, and separating young orchards from old. It suggests preventing stock damage, cultivating trees, intercropping between rows, and rabbit deterrence. It also notes a distant forest district plan with many supervisors overseeing vast acreage.
Farmers urged to avoid specialty fertilizers for soil health
A reader asks for fertilizer guidance as costs rise. The editor cautions against buying many crop specific mixes and promotes soil building through balanced phosphate use, crop rotation, and legumes. Emphasizes humus formation and long term soil improvement over immediate yield with costly nitrogen heavy blends.
Money in Ostrich Farms Near Los Angeles
One of the oldest ostrich ventures in America lies near Los Angeles at the Cawston farm established over twenty years ago. Hundreds of ostriches are raised with plumes harvested regularly for global demand, sustaining profitable operations in a warm dry Pacific coast climate suited to ostrich rearing.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
America
Los Angeles
Cawston
Pacific Coast
South Africa
Shapely Fruit Trees Prompt Pruning Debate
The article argues against absolute nonpruning claiming that while nature aims to meet her own needs pruning can increase fruit production. It notes some insistence that pruning disrupts natural balance, yet human cultivation often pushes trees to bear more than nature would on her own.
Thumb pruning and legume crops boost tree care and soil fertility
The article emphasizes careful young-tree care through thumb pruning and clean root cuts to prevent future damage. It notes knife use over shears, explains how breaking roots fosters disease, and urges continuous agricultural education alongside potash, nitrogen, and phosphorus needs. It highlights clover and other legumes as free nitrogen sources via soil bacteria, and cites Cyril G. Hopkins’s favorable results in southern Illinois on green manuring.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
America
Illinois
Indiana
States
Cyril G. Hopkins
Ilinois
Fertile African Valleys and Green Manuring
United States Department of Agriculture explains Nile valley fertility stems from nitrifying powers of legume like clover and alfalfa. Green manuring, plowing under green crops for fertilizing value, can revive barren land, a practice agricultural colleges teach to American farmers.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
United States Department of Agriculture
The
Nile
Agricultural Department
Agricultural College
Ameri
Farm Repair Shop Floor Plan Described
A practical farm repair shop setup is outlined with weatherproof work space, a workbench, tool storage, and a 24 by 16 foot one story building floor plan. The article notes repurposing parts of existing farm buildings like wagon sheds to create an efficient repair area for cold or stormy weather conditions.
Keep Cows in Open Sheds by Professor Fraser
Professor W J Fraser reports an experiment with twenty two cows in a 30 by 68 foot shed with side mangers and bull pens in two corners. Cows kept in open sheds stay cleaner and healthier, milking areas are sanitarier, and natural fresh air improves appetite. Labor is reduced as bedding is easier and manure can be hauled directly from the shed to fields.
CARE OF THE HORSE
Practical guidance on horse care and training from proper breeding to humane handling. Emphasizes that only quality stock yields good foals, warns against poor feeding and ventilation, and urges gentle, honest work to build a willing, capable horse. It compares farm work efficiency and notes a broken spirit in a horse leads to irreparable loss.
Watering House Plants Requires Balanced Care
Plants in pots must not become very dry nor be overwatered. Neglect can damage roots and kill moisture channels, while excessive watering damages root ends. Proper watering maintains steady moisture, avoids root decay, and keeps pots healthy for plant recovery.
Old Farm Shop Design Promotes Efficient Repairs and Fertility Save
A detailed description outlines a combined timber and iron workshop with a wood bench, iron vise, shelving, and bolt storage. It emphasizes ample lighting, protective netting, heated winters, and large end doors for full access to repair large implements. The text argues improved manure handling saves fertility and reduces waste, noting cold climate and labor concerns. The method is praised where tried and applied, though conclusions vary by region.
Trap nests improve hen egg production records
Trap nests capture hens at laying to record each bird's output. They help separate eggs by hen, enabling breeders to identify better layers. The method reveals that spring layer performance may favor previously nonlaying hens, shifting selection patterns in egg production programs.
Early Potatoes How-To From a Texan Farmer Brightens Yield
Grow extra early potatoes using deeply stirred, well drained soil. Avoid fresh manure to prevent scab, and use well rotted stable manure or commercial fertilizer. Plant a potato on a bed of manure then 4 to 5 inches of soil, thin to three stalks per hill, and cultivate regularly. Also note a giant river pearl found near Brady and San Saba weighing about 1000 grains.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
N. J. Shepard
Brady
Tex
San Saba River
Late March farm tips for orchards crops and livestock
Instructions on spring farming tasks across crops and animals. Plowing when ground firms, pruning grapes, protecting chicks, dehorning calves, handling sows, nest timing for hens, bees, cutworms, fencing, potatoes, onions, and alfalfa seed. Emphasizes careful timing, shelter, and contracts with workers.
The Farmers Enemies Hawks and Owls in Field Pest Control
Government guidance on using strychnine to kill mice harms birds of prey, as Governor Hart's study of 5,000 hawks and owls shows only three species prey on poultry while the rest protect crops by eating field mice and grasshoppers. Westwide hawks destroy about 1,000 mice annually, and rats cause major damage to farms.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Hart
Turkey mother or hen mother which raises better poults
The article argues turkeys thrive when left with hens to raise broods, noting turkeys dislike confinement and prefer woods and seeds. It recommends giving the first clutch to hens, then allowing the turkey to mother subsequent broods, with some birds raising a third clutch for the holiday market. Japanese government experts are buying Australian stallions as founda tions for their studs.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Poultry Department
Bessie L. Putnam
Value of Gow Peas for Southern Agriculture
The cow pea offers nitrogen from the atmosphere and adapts to poor soils, improving soil humus and structure. It furnishes pasture, hay, and grain, precedes cotton tobacco and corn, aids melon and vegetable crops, and can be grown in one or two crops per season in the South, with more limited use in the middle and northern states due to shorter growing seasons and frost sensitivity.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Middle States
Little Nubbins of News Highlights From Various Topics
A miscellany of brief items notes C M Marquis as top US sheep shearer at Two Dot Montana, 40 million US sheep with 13 million in fourwestern states, and dandelion wine interest after Michigan local option law. Also cites Kansas City ice cream deal, Manzano New Mexico oldest orchard, thripps pest in California, 20 million+ American horses valued at 238 million, Paris racing horse fed dried milk, Santa Rosa eggs market jump, historic Nahum Wright house since 1717, Missouri river flood loss, and English pheasant farming profit and use in reserves.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
United States
C. M. Marquis
Montana
Wyoming
Idaho
Oregon
Michigan
Oakland
Kansas City
Manzano
Torrance County
N. M
California
Agricultural Department
San Jose
America
Paris
Poultrymen
Santa Rosa
Cal
Nahum Wright
Graniteville
Mass
Missouri
Also Mentioned on This Page
Mrs
William Saffern
Virginia
M. Miller
W. J. Fraser
Oklahoma
Turkey
South
BY C. M. Miller
Little Nubbins
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