Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 12, March 22, 1884: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and FiresideVarious
Science
Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 12, March 22, 1884: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside
Various
Agriculture -- United States -- Periodicals; Farm life -- Periodicals; United States -- Rural conditions -- Periodicals
ANSWER.--We know of no way the thing can be done unless a part of the
methods are used that are employed in the tanning of goat skins for making
Morocco leather. These are: to soak the skins to soften them; then put
them into a lime vat to remove the hair, and after to take the lime out in
a douche consisting of hen and pigeon dung. This done, the skins are then
sewed up so as to hold the tanning liquid, which consists of a warm and
strong decoction of Spanish sumac. The skins are filled with this liquid,
then piled up one above the other and subsequently refilled, two or three
times, or as fast as the liquid is forced through the skins. If the furs
or pelts were first soaked to soften them, all the fatty, fleshy matter
carefully removed, after sewed up as goat skins are, and then filled and
refilled several times with a strong decoction of white oak bark, warm,
but not hot, no doubt the result would prove satisfactory.
DR. J. F. SCHLIEMAN, HARTFORD, WIS.--Are there any works on the
cultivation of the blueberry, and if so could you furnish the same? Do you
know of any parties that cultivate them?
ANSWER.--We have never come across anything satisfactory on the
cultivation of the blueberry except in Le Bon Jardiniere, which says: "The
successful cultivation of the whole tribe of Vacciniums is very difficult.
The shrubs do not live long and are reproduced with much difficulty,
either by layers or seeds." The blueberry, like the cranberry, appears to
be a potash plant, the swamp variety not growing well except where the
water is soft, the soil peaty above and sandy below. The same appears also
to be true of the high land blueberry; the soil where they grow is
generally sandy and the water soft. You can procure Le Bon Jardiniere (a
work which is a treasure to the amateur in fruit and plants) of Jansen,
McClurg & Co., of Chicago, at 30 cents, the franc. Some parties, we think,
offer blueberry plants for sale, but we do not recollect who they are.
H. HARRIS, HOLT'S PRAIRIE, ILL.--Will it do to tile drain land
which has a hard pan of red clay twelve to eighteen inches below the
surface?
ANSWER.--It will do no harm to the land to drain it if there is a hard pan
near the surface, but in order to make tile draining effective on such
land, the drains will have to be at half the distance common on soils
without the hard pan.
SUBSCRIBER, DECATUR, ILL.--In testing seed corn, what per cent must sprout
to be called first-class. I have some twenty bushels of Stowell's
Evergreen that was carefully gathered, assorted, and shelled by hand.
This I have tested by planting twenty-one grains, of which sixteen grew.
How would you class it?
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