AGRICULTURAL BREVITIES.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2073, 15 October 1880, Page 3

AGRICULTURAL BREVITIES.

An American agricultural professor says that a paint made of skim milk and brine (water) will render wood non-inflammable. It in durable, cheap, impervious to water, and useful for shingled roofs. The question as to~whether different kinds of potatoes will mix in the row is being dobated in American agricultural papers. The professors say no, but some of the growers say yes. Fruit trees that are suffering from sourness of the ground should be dug under and around with a fork, and be treated to a heavy application of wood ashes. Drains 3ft. deep should then be dug between each row, and the neglected orchard will revive. The ground between growing crops should be kept constantly hoed, even if there are no weeds, as a loose surface checks evaporation.

The committee of the International Potato Exhibition deolare that the practice of planting small refuse seed has contributed in a most material degree to the deterioration of the potato, not only in Ireland, but throughout Europe. Any seed tuber weighing less than an ounce and a !.alf is unfit for planting. Even a person who has only a small town garden, or who lives in a bush hut in the baok country, should sow a few tomatoes against the fence or hut; if well watered they will be always bearing. All flowers intended for indoor decoration should be out in the early morning. The heavy Asiatic breeds of fowls are the best to keep by any one who has a garden. Annuals require liberal treatment in order to show to advantage. Tomatoes will yield by careful cultivation, on one acre of land, 400 bushels. Grass, if out when in bloom, oontains 62 per cent, of nutriment, but if left till the seeds are fully ripe only 31 per cent. The trench system of cultivating oelery is entirely superseded in America by cultivating on the flat and blanching late in the season by throwing up the earth in ridges around the plants. Wheat growers read this. The surplus of American wheat this present year, after supplying all Europe as well as America, will reach the enormous (quantity of 200,000,000 bushels. Again, it is calculated that within five years no less than 4,000,000 additional acres will be under wheat in the Canadian Far West. Is it worth while Australians troubling with such a rusty product ? A correspondent of the "Australasian" sen-Is the following as' an infallible euro for apple blight:—" Lay bare the roots of the tree most affeoted; scrape the parts most affected, let them lie open to the weather a few days and nights; then sprinkle a good dusting of sulphur over them, and oover them up again, painting the whole of the stem and branches with castor oil. This I have proved effectual, and do not know one who has tried it but with sucoess.