Farm, Orchard, and Garden - 1903

March 8, 1903

By J.S. Trigg, Rockford, Iowa

Rice feeds ten persons, taking the world at large, where wheat feeds one.

The losses by reason of hog cholera last year in the state of Indiana are placed at near $6,000,000.

The American farmer is getting the daily paper habit as a result of rural delivery, and it is a good thing for him.

Steam transports having a capacity of 900,000 bushels of wheat each will soon be plying between the Pacific coast and Japan.

The modern harvesting machines are now in use by twenty-nine different nations of the earth and represent in their ability to harvest the crops of the world the labor of 20,000,000 men.

We do not know that the time will ever come when the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the time has come when the hog will eat hay — alfalfa hay — like an old cow. It is a staple winter ration for Kansas hogs.

An export dealer in butter stated recently that he would rather handle butter which scored 92 and which would remain at that scoring until disposed of than to handle an extra grade at 93 and have it drop to 92 before it could be sold.

A second cutting of timber land — oak, hickory, maple and basswood — of twenty-eight years' growth yields about eighteen cords to the acre, worth net to the owner about $72. This fact explains why forestry is not profitable in a commercial sense.

A farmers' mutual insurance company of a county in a Western state paid $2,375 on thirty-nine losses during the year. Of this amount $2,284.84 was for losses caused by lightning, stock killed, while only $129.75 was paid out for fire losses. This goes to show that lightning in these days of barbed wire fences is a very destructive agent.

The stockmen of the West are bitterly opposed to the proposed packing house trust, believing such a combination will have the cattlemen completely at its mercy in the matter of fixing prices. This opposition is so marked and emphatic that with its threats to establish packing houses of its own it may defeat the proposed packing house merger.

Years ago when black walnut was plentiful and cheap it was used largely for the construction of the wooden bridges by the pioneers because of the ease with which it could be worked and its well-known durability. Such a bridge built fifty years ago in the state of Indiana, 150 feet long, contains timber valued at present at $15,000, which would more than twice pay for a steel bridge to take its place.

We are asked whether the production of cucumbers for pickles is a profitable business, what the yield is and what the profits. In such cases as we have known the crop will yield a gross return of from $40 to $70 per acre. There are two difficulties in the way of this crop — one to protect the vines from insect pests, the other to secure necessary help to gather the crop, which has to be done every two or three days during the season.

If one starts out as a breeder of registered cattle of any breed, he must produce animals of such a grade of excellence that his yearling males will bring him at least $100 each. If he cannot do this, he had better confine his efforts to the production of beef or milk and let others breed for the market. Not every man is cut out for a breeder. There must be individual excellence as well as pedigree, and some men cannot combine these qualities.

A large purchase of Belgian hares by an Eastern canning factory was logically followed by a large shipment of choice selected boned turkey from the cannery soon after. After all, it's what you think you are eating rather than what you really eat, evidenced by the serving of fried cat for squirrel as a joke at a party, the participants at the feast pleased and satisfied, only to undergo a serious digestive disturbance later when informed of what they had really eaten.

With the exception of the peach, orange, grape, nectarine and apricot, it may be said that nearly all our other fruits thrive best where there are the least extremes of temperature, where neither excessive heat, cold, moisture nor aridity prevails. The climatic conditions which prevail in Nova Scotia, lower Canada, northern New York, northern Michigan, Washington and Oregon, whore it would be difficult to mature a crop of corn, furnish the apple its very best conditions, also the pear, cherry and all the small fruits.