THE WISCONSIN FARMER.



wheat screenings, oats or any grain you can
get, mixed together; fresh meat is very good,
but I would not feed on it altogether. To have
hens lay through the winter, they must not be
affected by sudden changes of the weather.
Hens that lay steadily through the summer do
not lay in winter.  Pure water is indispensa.
ble in poultry breeding."



THE HORTICULTURIST.



A. G. HANFORD,:: CORRESPONDING EDITOR.



               Go Plant a Vine.
        Reader, go plant a Tine;
   Why should the virgin soil drink in the sun,
        Why should his blessings shine
   On the bare earth, with nought to rest upon?
        Go plant a vine.
        Dig deep the soil,
   Let it behold thy morn and evening care;
        Bend to thy toil
   As though it were glad labor to prepare
        To plant a vine.
        Perhaps 'twill cling,
   Alas too late, around a withered tree,
        And all its fragrance fling
   On the ungrateful air full wearily
        Yet plant a vine.
        No clusters may
   Reward thy labor and thy toil arrayed,
        Yet e'en a lamb may stray
   In summer beats beneath its broad-leaved shade;
        Go plant a vine.
        Thou lovest thy fellow man?
   Wh3 tarry longer? for the sun will set;
        No philanthropic plan?
   Up Up Oh, hast thou nothing done as yet?
        Go plant a vine.
        And then, when night shall come,
   Trellised 'mid stars, the Husbaudman above
        Thy vine shall carry home,
   Transplanted to the garden of God's love;
        Go plant a vine.

          Renovating Flower Beds.

  If the exhausted beds have a good bottom,
we advise removing the top spit and replacing
it with a mixture of virgin earth from an up-
land field, well chopped up with old chippy
cow-dung, and a good proportion of leaf-mold
-say, if you can obtain the quantities, equal
parts of each of the three ingredients. If you
can get the beds empty in the winter, the best
way will be to take off the top spit and fork
over the subsoil, so as to let the frost and snow
penetrate it; then get a good supply of burned
clay and hot-bed dung, and chop them down
together in a ridge, and let them be well frozen
and fill up the beds with the mixture early in
March, and they will be in admirable condi-
tion for planting as soon as they have settled.
Chippings off hedges, refuse wood, straw, &c.,
built up over a hole, and packed round with
cakes of old turf, and then burned, make a
capital dressing to dig into the old soil, if you
cannot well get new material to replace the



worn out stuff.  If used chiefly for bedding
plants, a compost of leaf-mold and sandy soil
from a common, equal parts, and one-fifth of
the whole very -old dung, would prove a good
mixture. Bedding plants do not require a rich
soil as much as a new soil.-Gardener'8 Weekly
Magazine.

             Strawberry Culture.

  One year ago we gave the readers of the
FARMER particular directions how to treat
their old strawberry beds. If our experience
is proof, all who carried out faithfully our
plan last year are abundant gainers thereby.
Especially are the advantages of this system
apparent at this time, when the prevailing
drouth has blasted the hopes of many a straw-
berry grower.
  The principal features of that plan are
  1. Thorough and deep stirring of the soil,
with severe thinning of the plants;
  2. A light winter mulch in late autumn, to
remain on to decay until after the fruit is off
the next season.
  This plan of thorough, deep tillage, imme-
diately after the crop is off, we deem one of
the utmost importance to successful culture-
using the spading-fork, hoe and rake for the
garden, and the subsoiler, drag and horse-hoe
for the field.
  This mode of culture we style annual renew-
ing. And this is the only period of the whole
year when this can be done without injury to
the succeeding crop.  This is great economy
over the common way of allowing the ground
to mat over with vines at two years from plant-
ing out, and making new beds every second
year.
Unless the soil is very rich, an annual top
iressing of composted manure should be ap-
plied at the time of this overhauling. None
but such manures should be applied to the
strawberry bed. Avoid raw manures, as they
generally contain abundance of weed and
grass seeds. Sawdust, tanbark, or even chips
are excellent for winter mulch.
We do not advise plauting at this period;
six weeks or two months later is found prefer-
able, but spring is the only sure time.
                             J. C. PLUMB.



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