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Modern Farm Methods As Applied in the South. Notes of Interest to Planter, Fruit Grower and Stockman Packing Fruit* and Vegetables. My experience in this line has been largely in the capacity of re ceiver. Consequently, I should rather suggest than dictate. In my long experience as re¬ ceiver, I note very little change in methods of packing. No package is properly put up for shipment that contains an article in several stages of growth or maturity. Take tomatoes, for instance. The common practice is to put half-grown and ripe in the same package. The consequence is, the half-grown never ripen and the ripe ones rot. Of course tomatoes that are put up for shipment to distant markets should not be perfectly ripe, but should be at least fully grown. All spotted and deformed stock should be rejected. The six-basket carriers or the flats make satisfac tory packages. Lettuce should receive especial care. It should not be allowed to wither, but packed as cut. All de¬ cayed leaves should be picked off and in packing use both hands to tuck the outer leaves around the head to preserve It. Pack in layers with a side pressure. Thus packed it.will carry long distances, and keep fresh and crisp. Beets should be packed with the beets in centre of barrel instead of outside, which is the common prac¬ tice. Radishes should be put up same as beets, as nearly as possible. About 100 bunches to the hamper. The great error in packing lies in the fact that the grower will not resist the temptation to put a few aunmi ’ £ Z i A SORTING TABLE FOR PACKING PEACHES. inferior or worthless specimens in his package, I cannot conceive why they persist in doing It when it should be as much to the grower as it is to the receiver, that a few Inferior specimens will often make a two dollar package sell for one fifty, I have paid $1 per hamper on a shipment of radishes that could not be sold for twenty-five cents. Each hamper contained about twen¬ ty-five bundles of weeds and grass and about 200 wormy radishes in each bundle. Of course not all growers are so careless, but enough are to bring distrust on the whole business. The time is at hand when the Southern grower to be successful must identify himself with his pro¬ ducts. His name and address on his packages should be a guarantee that they are properly graded and packed. If the Southern grower could visit our receiving centres and see how certain marks and packs were sought after he would be surprised. It is not a surplus of desirable stock that gluts our markets at times, but an accumulation of unmarketable trash tvlilch is a loss to the shipper and a hardship to the receiver.—W. J. Grounds, in the Southern Fruit Grower. Should Use Cotton Oil. We ask you to consider one other matter of no small importance to the cotton interests of the South. This is the use of cotton oil instead of lard in cooking. In value and healthful¬ ness there can be no question but that this splendid vegetable product of our sunny cotton fields is as wor¬ thy, if not more worthy, of use than hog lard, and if cotton oil were a Northern product, its use by now would doubtless be almost universal among housewives, so manifest are its merits. May we then utilize this opportunity to urge our Southern housewives to help this Southern in¬ dustry by giving it the preference over lard in their kitchens? The Yorkville (S. C.) Enquirer recently published an article on this subject, which is so appropriate here that we reprint it entire: “Why don’t the Southern people have sense enough to recognize cot tonseed oil as the principal basis of practically all the so-called lard they are now using and go in directly for cottonseed oil rather than lard? “We confess our inability to give a satisfactory answer to this question, The chemist tells us that there is no harm in cottonseed oil and practical experience not only tells us that it measures up to every reauirement lard, but that it Is just as wholesome and ever so much cleaner. But still we have a prejudice against the oil and won’t use it until the Northern packer has mixed it with more or less questionable hog fat, labeled it under a different name and sold it back to us at a higher price. By the way, is it not possible that our objec¬ tion to cottonseed oil in food is really a matter of Yankee suggestion? If there were any way t.o trace the mat¬ ter to the bottom this is about what we would find. And yet, it is as plain as the nose on one’s face that if the Southern people would assume a frank, open attitude toward the subject, determine on the use of cot¬ tonseed oil themselves, brag on it and do all in their power to remove the prejudices of others, the result would be a still more wholesome product than we are now getting at much less cost. “We are allowing ourselves to be duped in this matter, and we are paying tribute on a commodity that is absolutely our own.” The Hay Crop. The area devoted to hay and pas¬ ture in this country stands next to corn and is equal to more than one third of that devoted to cereals. Not¬ withstanding its vast importance, I think that I am justified in saying that hay is the most neglected crop grown on the farm to-day. I think that there is no other crop that would respond more readily to better meth¬ ods than hay. Hay is neglected for a number of reasons. In the first place, the preparation of the seed bed is often poorly done. Often far- mers buy cheap seed with a low per¬ centage of germination and not enough of it is -own to secure a good stand. Meadows are left in hay so long that the yield falls off and many weeds and fine grasses come in to lower the quality. There Is quite a general opinion that a variation of several days in the time of cutting hay does not make any serious dif¬ ference in the quality. Therefore in sections where the wheat and hay harvest come on together the wheat is invariably cut first and the hay has to wait until later.—From address on “The Culture of Grass Crops,” by H. B. McClure, of Dept, of Agricul¬ ture, before the National Hay Asso¬ ciation. Plant Nut Trees. It cannot be said too often that it is wise for our people to plant nut trees. Consider the destruction of our forests, and the rapid increase of our population. A scarcity of nuts and high prices for them can be seen in the near future. In all sections of our land there are some nut trees that do well. . Pecans for the Gulf States, chestnuts for the East, hick¬ ory and walnuts for the Mississippi Valley, etc. Let the soft timber shel¬ ter belts about the home be replaced' by nut trees. • They will steadily grow into money. Fifty years from now the income secured through the suggested change would amount to millions of dollars. The States should encourage tim¬ ber planting, and especially, by wise premiums, the growing of valuable timber and nut trees.—The Fruit man. Barnyard Mannre. The importance of saving and us¬ ing barnyard manure is understood at this time, and yet no one can get much about in the country without seeing that there is still waste in this respect. A farmer who for many years has watched and practiced the leading points in his business, so succeeding in a very decided way, in talking about the matter recently said: “Barnyard manure is the most im portant form of organic matter to add to the soils. The production and proper treatment of barnyard manure is just as necessary in good farming as the 'growing of a staple crop. The vital need of some sec tions of the United States is a great increase in livestock to produce ma nure and make possible the growing of a greater variety of crops, such as are required in a judicious rotation of crops.”—Home and Farm. Household Matters. Steamed Beefsteak. Cut pieces of round steak in a con¬ venient size for serving. Dip them in egg, roll in cracker crumbs, and brown quickly in butter in a very hot frying pan. Place the meat in a deep dish or basin; make a brown gravy of butter, flour and water, with salt to season, and pour it over the meat. Then steam three hours or longer, if there is time. The meat will be ten¬ der and delicious. Veal is nice cooked in this way. Maple Souffle. Melt three tablespoonfuls of butter, add three level tablespoonfuls of flour and when frothy, also, gradually, one cupful of thin maple syrup. When the mixture boils remove from the fire and slowly pour over the well beaten yolks of four eggs, then fold in the stiffly beaten whites of four eggs, and bake in a moderate oven thirty minutes or until well puffed up and firm to the’touch.—American Home Monthly. String Beans Salad. Select young, tender beans, cut the strings from both sides, then cut each bean in two lengthwise, then across. Throw them in cold water as fast as cut. When ready to cook cover with boiling salted water, cook twenty minutes and drain, throw into cold water ten minutes, then cover again with boiling water, to which two or three tablespoonfuls olive oil have been added. Cook fifteen minutes or longer until tender. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot for the first day. Put the beans remaining in the ice box. When ready for the salad, drain free from liquor, arrange on lettuce leaves and cover with French dressing or sauce tartare.— Washington Star. Tomato Sauce. Add to one cupful of hot stewed and strained tomato one tablespoon¬ ful of butter rubbed with a teaspoon¬ ful of corn starch. Stir until smooth and thickened, add one-half teaspoon¬ ful of salt, a few drops of onion juice and a tablespoonful of piquant sauce. If too thick dilute with a little boiling water. A richer sauce is made by putting a pint can of toma¬ toes into a saucepan with a bunch of seasoning herbs, salt and pepper to taste, and add one-half cup of water. Put over the fire, cook about three quarters of an hour, stirring often. Put a tablespoonful and a half of but¬ ter in a saucepan over the fire with a scant tablespoonful of flour. Add the strained pulp from the tomatoes and a small cup rich broth, graduat¬ ing the amount to make the sauce the consistency required.—Washing¬ ton Star. Egg Fritters. Three eggs, hard boiled, one table¬ spoonful chopped cooked chicken, pepper, one tablespoonful chopped cooked ham, one teaspoonful of an¬ chovy sauce* Cut the eggs in halves, lengthways, and remove the yolks. Pound to¬ gether the chicken, yolks and ham in a mortar, add pinch of pepper, and replace as much of the mixture in the hollow of one of the whites as fills it; put the other half in its proper place. Do this to the three eggs. Make an additional egg with what of the mixture remains, and make the following batter: Batter.—Put two tablespoonfuls of flour into a basin, add a pinch of salt, mix well, add one tablespoonful of salad oil, three tablespoonfuls of warm water and make into a smooth batter. Beat up the white of one egg stiffly and ad'd it next. Dip one of the eggs in the batter to completely cover it, and put it into smoking hot fat and fry till brown. Repeat. Serve on a napkin with fried parsley to garnish.—Boston Cooking School Magazine. ft Hints for. the 'housekeeper. ISs&i Watch your dish cloths and keep them clean. Otherwise you will be supporting a microbe paradise. Never break eggs on the edge of a crock or pan. Use a knife instead; it is much easier. Keep a pumice stone by your sink. When there are brown streaks in your granite, porcelain lined or steel kettles, rub them off with the stone. After washing children’s frocks, a hot iron should never be pressed over the colored embroidery itself, as this is apt to fade the colors and spoil the look of the garment. W hen boiling cabbage, kraut, tur nips or other loun smelling sub stances, put a lump of charcoal. or red pepper pod in the kettle to neu tralize the odor therefrom. The backs and handles of ebony brushes should be rubbed over with a very little boiled linseed oil after washing, and then rubbed with a soft duster until every vestige of oil is re¬ moved. Egg stains can be removed from silver by wiping them thoroughly with fine salt and a dry, soft cloth. Dip the cloth in the salt and then rub on the silver and the stain will soon disappear, leaving the silver bright and clean. To remove the odor or onions from fish kettles and saucepans in which they have been cooked, put in wood ashes or sal soda, potash or lye; fill with water and let it stand on the stove until it boils; then wash in hot suds and rinse well. If you will spread newspapers over your bed or dining table when you wish to cut out a dress or waist, you will never cut your table cloth or spread, and you will have a smooth surface to pin your pattern against and save all scratches and mars. To clean ironware, take two table¬ spoonfuls of concentrated lye to three quarts of water. It will make pancake griddles like new and the c«.ke will not stick. Set the griddles or any vessel to be cleaned where they will keep hot, but not boil, for three or four hours. BIRDS AS FOREST WARDENS. Perform Great Service to Man in Pre¬ serving Trees. The robins and other familiar birds are struggling heroically to get their young on the wing, where they can be independent of the predatory cat and small boy, and also the tom¬ boy. This is the season when it seems peculiarly fit that the school authorities should instruct teachers in all grades to admonish their pu¬ pils as to their duty toward the birds and their nestlings at this time. It is quite apparent that the parents of the children are for the most part neglecting this ,most necessary bit of instruction; at least, it has so im¬ pressed one who has by heroic ef¬ forts preserved for a week a nest of five robins from spoilation at the hands of various children. How much longer the nestlings have to live is a problem from which an actuary would probably shrink. At the recent meeting of the Gov¬ ernors in Washington for the purpose of conserving the land, water and forest resources of the nation, the work of the birds in protecting crops was freely acknowledged; but it was also shown that they have an impor¬ tant part in forest preservation. The government recently received a re¬ port from one of its departments to the effect that insects cause an annu¬ al loss to trees of more than $100, 000,000. On the oak alone 400 spe¬ cies of insects, which are sought and consumed by the birds of the forest, prey continually, the experts of the Biological Survey have discovered. On the willow 18* such spedies at¬ tempt its destruction; on the pine, 165; one the hickory, 170; one the birch, 105, and on the elm, 80. Care¬ ful analysis of the stomachs of wood¬ peckers, titmice, creepers, kinglets, wood warblers, wrens, fly catchers, swallows, nut-hatches and other birds shows that their constant labor is to consume those devastating insects. The National Society of Audubon Societies has declined to offer its co¬ operation in aid of the movement be¬ gun at Washington, and reminds the Governors that if they would urge and work for the enactment of uni¬ form laws for the protection of birds, they would find no better means for forwarding their great work. And to our way of thinking, the work could be immensely aided by the adoption of a “bird day” in the pub¬ lic schools, to be celebrated early in May of each year. The exercises should be of suen nature as to in¬ sure an impression upon the mind of the predatory small boy. Their effect might also reach the mind of the thoughtless or indifferent adult who keeps a useless cat as a “pet. ft —Rochester Herald. Quantity of Radium in the World. Madame Curie possesses fifteen milligrammes of radium, Prof. Bor das ten, M. Becquerel ten, Sir Will¬ iam Ramsay twenty, Sir William Crookes twenty, Prof. d’Arsonval twenty, and Thomas A. Edison twen¬ ty milligrammes. About twenty mil¬ ligrammes more are in the posses¬ sion of other professors. All this is in the form of pure or nearly pure radium and its salts, and the entire amount is 135 milligrammes, or about two grains troy. Commercial low grade radium is distributed among a great many hands and its strength is very vari¬ able. Hence exact statistics are not obtainable, but it is estimated that the entire amount of commercial ra¬ dium contains less pure radium than the quantity in the possession of sci¬ entists, as stated above. To these samples must be added the comparatively enormous quantity 0 f three grammes of radium which profs. Exner and Wien have lately extracted from half a ton of Joacb imsthal pitchblende, the value of which is estimated at $80,000. One gramme of this is to be lent to Sir William Ramsey for experiments on radium, emanation.—Scientific Amer icaa. The General Demand of the Well-Informed of the World has always been for a simple, pleasant and efficient liquid laxative remedy of know I! value; a laxative which physicians could sanction for family use because its com¬ ponent parts are known to them to be wholesome and truly beneficial in effect, acceptable to the system and gentle, yet prompt, in action. In supplying that demand with its ex¬ cellent combination of Syrup of Figs and Elixir of Senna, the California Fig Syrup Co. proceeds along ethical lines and relies on the merits of the laxative for its remark¬ able success. That is one of many reasons why Syrup of Figs and Elixir of Senna is given the preference by the Well-Informed. To get its beneficial effects always buy the genuine—manufactured by the Cali¬ fornia Fig Syrup Co., only, and for sale by all leading druggists. Price fifty cents per bottle. The Rock of Gibraltar is honey¬ combed with 70 miles of tunneling. REMOVES CORNS WITHOUT PAIV. Abbott’s east Indian coax paint removes corns, root and all, without cutting or burn¬ ing and leaves no soreness, It cures soft corns between the toes, bunions or sore, callous spots. It cures all quick and per¬ manent. Get it at your druggist or send 25c. to The Abbott Co., Savannah, Ga. The average woman is a good ac¬ tress off the stage. Hicks’ Capudine Cures Women’s and Monthly Headache. Pains, It’s Backache, Nervousness diately. Prescribed bv Liquid. physicians Effects imme¬ results. and with best 10c., 25c., 50c.. at drug stores. A dog wearing spectacles has ap¬ peared on the streets in Paris and New York, but no dog has yet fallen so low. as to wear a monocle, boasts the Louisville Courier-Journal. HAD ECZEMA 15 TEARS. Mrs. Thomas Thompson, of Clarksville, Ga., writes, under date of April 23, 1907: “I suffered i5 yea^s with tormenting eczema; had the best dootors to prescribe; but noth¬ ing did me any good until I got tetterine. It cured me. I am so thankful.” Thousands of others can testify to similar cures. Tetterine is sold by druggists or sent by mail for 50c. by J. T. Shuptrine, Dept. A, Savannah, Ga. THE TRAVELLER. The shades of night were falling down On a Western Kansas shack, When up the alkali dust of the town Rode a tenderfoot, dressed in black. On a woe-begone broncho—an iron gray, At his saddle bow hung a rifle; On his hack was slung a dress suit case, •Some 50 pounds yet a trifle To the weight he bore in his tired brain, As he journeyed from day to day; And these are the thoughts that went and came As he travelled his lonely way; He thought of his home, by the sad sea waves; Of himself as a country jay; Of the smell of salt hay and barrel staves, And he heard his father say: R Rory! Rory! Get out the dory, Don’t talk back and don’t get gay! Go and tell the old man Morey, ‘A herring’s swam into Quincy Bay.’ ” Rogers Payne Scruton, in the Boston Post. BITTEN BY A HORSERADISH. << And so Smithers died of hydropho. bia?” “Yes; poor chap!” u How did it happen?” ‘Tie put too much horseradish on his bologna and it bit his tongue.”— Chicago News. HEALTH AND INCOME. Both Kept Up on Scientific Food. Good sturdy health helps one a lot to make money. With the loss of health one’s in¬ come is liable to shrink, if not en¬ tirely dwindle away. When a young lady has to make her own living, good health is her best asset. “I am alone in the world,” writes a Chicago girl, “dependent on my own efforts for my living. I am a clerk, and about two years ago through close ap¬ plication to work and a boarding house diet, I became a nervous in¬ valid, and got so bad off it was almost impossible for me to stay in the office a half day at a time. “A friend suggested to me the idea of trying Grape-Nuts, which I did, making this food a large part of at least two meals a day. “To-day I am free from brain-tire, dyspepsia and all the ills of an over¬ worked and improperly nourished brain and body. To Grape-Nuts I owe the recovery of my health, and the ability to retain my position and income. ” “There’s a Reason.” Name given by Postum Co., Batt.e Creek, Mich. • Read ‘The Road to Wellville,” in pkgs. A new* Ever read the above letter? one appears from time to time, They are genuine, true, and full of human interest.