HINTS TO FARMERS.

plagiarized.

by the “fat contributor.”

[Written for the Cincinnati Times.]

Now that the Winter is approaching, it would perhaps be as well to discontinue haying, and turn your attention to putting in your fall saw-logs. No farmer can consider his fall work complete until he has his cellar well supplied with saw-logs. Seated around the blazing hearth of a Winter’s night there is not fruit more delicious.

A correspondent asks us what we think of late plowing. Plowing should not be continued later than ten or eleven o’clock at night. It gets the horses in the habit of staying out late, and unduly exposes the plow. We have known plows to acquire springhalt and inflammatory rheumatism from late plowing. Don’t do it.

To another correspondent who wants us to suggest a good drain on a farm, we would say a heavy mortgage at ten per cent. will drain it about as rapidly as anything we know of.

When you make cider select nothing but the soundest turnips, chopping them into sled length before cradling them. In boiling your cider use plenty of ice, and when boiled hang it up in the sun to dry.

A pick axe should never be used in picking apples. It has a tendency to break down the vines and damage the hive.

In sowing your Winter apple jack a horse rake will be found preferable to a step ladder. Step ladders is liable to freeze up, and are hardly palatable unless boiled with sugar.

In cutting down hemlock trees for canning select the largest. Don’t throw away your chips, as they make fine parlor ornaments encased in rustic frames of salt and vinegar.

The coming cold weather should suggest to the humane farmer the necessity for a good cow-shed. The following is a receipt for making a good cow-shed: Pour a pailful of boiling hot water on her back, and if that does not make a good cow-shed—her hair—we are no prophet to anybody.

Now is the time for planting your Winter hay. The pink-eyed Southdown is probably the best variety, as it don’t need poling and begins to lay early.