FACTS TO FARMERS.

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 134, 15 March 1873, Page 3

FACTS TO FARMERS.

It is necessary to grease or od the cog wheels of machinery, and the best lubricator, i* tallow and black-lead rubbed together. In mowers, reapers, and threshing machines, this should always be attended to. How to remove foul air from a well, is often a matter of •vital importance. Never go into a well without first lowering a candle into it. X it goos oourt r you may know that there carbonic acid in the well. The gas u> heavier than, the air. The way to get it out is, to warm it m some way until it is light enough to ascend This mny be done by lowering down a tin pail of boilmg-hot water, with a rope, end moving it up and down in the dead air, or below the point -a hero the candle goes out. An experienced grower say, that his method for the past three years, in growing onions, has been to select a level and div piece of ground. His ground is rich alluvial loam, but the character of the soil is of no space] importance. Beds are formed two feet wide, with a- path of one foot between. The beds are, excavated to the depth of two niche*, or m Other words, the path or alley between is two inches higher than the beds ; the bottom of tte bed w mealy smoothed w ith the back of a spade, so as to present a level surface •mhercon to sow the seed The seed la sown so that from fifteen to twenty seeds will cover a square inch. If the surface of the beds were sprinkled with plaster of Paris or white, sand the seede, which are black, could be sowg more evenly After sowing, tho seeds are covered with two inches of pure clean snnd, which brings the beds and paths to the same level The whole is then rolled with a light roller or patted down witli a spade Tho advantages of this plan are, that there being no seed* of weeds in the' sand, the labour of weeding is entirely saved, and the sets when matured arc far more, easily harvested from the clean, soft sands than from the hard-baked surface which most soils present after a teason's rams and sun on a surface that cannot be stirred. An apple-seed produces an apple tree, but a russet appleseed will not produce a.russet apple. Wheat of any variety produces the same; for instance seed of a scarlet variety of verbena will not always produce its like. Why this anomaly ? The "why" of the matter cannot be told, but a few general rules may be useful. Seed* of plants found in the wild state, in their native habitats, almost invariably produce a progeny identical with the parent, and many species even after they have been subjected to bug years of cultivation never appear to change seemingly in the slightest degree. Other species under cultivation quickly deve.lop vaueties entirely different from the original, and become what is technically termed "broken." There arc many familiar examples where the original species have " broken" from what may be termed its primary condition into everchangmg variety. Thm changed, it is probable that their seeds wall never produce two individual plants exactly alike any more than two identical human faces or forms arc produced. Many whose experience in such hiattcrs should have taught them better are alwajs confounding plants raised from cuttings or slips with those raised from seods, and cannot se« why the plant raised from the slip or root, or the tree raised from the graft, should be always identical with the plant or tree from which they are taken, while the seeds taken from cither would not produce the same. Any cutting from a root or branch, whether rooted itself or engrafted on another stock (except in rare cases of sports), will be identical with that of the original form from which it was taken ; m fact, it. is oply a. separated part of the same plant, while thp plant raised from seed is a distinct ipdiwdual,