NOTES FROM HERE AND THERE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 246, 29 July 1937, Page 8

NOTES FROM HERE AND THERE.

SOME GENERAL INFORMATION.

Horse for Is 6d.

At Ballyjamesduff (County Cavan) Fair a, local farmer sold a horse for Is 6d and gave back threepence for luck.

Tobacco Crop. Some of the Irish farmers are finding tobacco their most profitable crop. Average returns of over £SO an acre are mentioned, and in some instances with experienced growers, over £IOO has been reached. This crop is restricted to four acres to each grower. Bull for Solomon Islands. A Shorthorn breeder in New South Wales has recently shipped a bull to the Solomon Islands. The same breeder has previously made exports to the Fiji Islands. Is there any country in which the Shorthorn is not found? Fertilisers. Lime and fertilisers have a part to play in keeping up soil fertility, but it is the sheep pen, the bullock yard, and nowadays the poultry fold which puts “guts” into the land.

Potato imports. Britain’s potato imports in the week ended April 24, totalled 8921 tons compared with 9021 tons in the previous week. Holland sent 2541 tons, Denmark 1784 tons, Canary Islands 1732 tons,

Irish Free State 910 tons and Spain 824 tons. Other supplies of potatoes comes from Belgium, Luxemburg, Estonia, Poland, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Aores, Portugal, Bermuda, Jamaica, Cyprus and Argentina.

Best Qualifications. “The best qualifications for a Conservative or Unionist Candidate is that ho should have no record whatsoever in the county. Indeed, if lie chances to reside in the agricultural division which ho contests, the more colourless his character, the better . . . If he is a farmer, he is naturally held! to be an enemy of the labouring race; if he is a landlord, then the hoary but inextinguishable and effective lie that he has been heard to say that nine shillings a week is enough for any labouring man is sure to be circulated to his detriment. Also it will he said that he makes a custom of turning off his hands to starve during the winter and that he has dismissed men for expressing sympathy with political opinions of which ho does not approve.”—Rider Haggard, April, 1898. Demand for Women Workers. There is a great demand for students who have completed the course at the Gloucestershire Dairy School. Miss Colnett, the principal, feels that the training of women milkers to replace the men who have been attracted by more lucrative armaments work, is the only wav to avoid a crisis of labour shortage on the farm.

Fortnight in a Snowdrift. After being buried for a fortnight in a deep snowdrift, a Herdwick ewe has been found alive by a dog at Blackhove Farm, near Ennerdale, Cumberland. Two other sheep alongside the ewe were dead.

Ford’s Big Mail. On the day prior to the announcement of the new “Ten” by Ford Motors Company, Ltd., that Company sent out a new record mail of approximately 16,600 letters from their Dageuharn Works, in addition to hundreds of packages, etc. The postage for the letters alone amounted to £7O. During an average week approximately 83,000 letters are received at the Ford orks, and it takes 24 experienced girls two hours each day to sort and distribute the correct departments. A Sit-dbwn Strike? Nine birds at the Yorkshire Egg Laying trial at Otley cannot be induced to lay. The report of the trial for the six months states that these birds have lived through the half-year without laying a single egg and it adds: “With the present high cost of food-stuffs they might have had a shorter life at home.” Rams’ Death Duel. Two Kerry Hill rams, which were bought together and had been running together for the past 12 months, recently engaged in a “fight to the death,” at Kingley, near Aleester, Warwickshire. The rams, the property of Mr F. M. Sisam, were found dead;, the neck of each being broken. Folding System. For improving grassland, the poultry folding system is preferable to sheep grazing. The poultry scratch out the rough patches and let daylight into the young clovers, resulting in an even, clean pasture. The folding system has come to stay on the general farm. Its advantages are many: it gives healthy stock and more eggs; less foods have to he purchased, and manure carting is dispensed with. Attack by an Eagle. An eagle swooped down on a boy riding a bicycle on the Victor Harbour Road, near Inman Valley, Adelaide, recently, and clawed at the back wheel. The hoy tried to pull his bicycle away from the bird which fluttered its big wings and: clung to the wheel. Then a bus appeared and the boy signalled for help. A bus driver struck the eagle with an iron bar but the bird clung to the machine until it was killed by the blows.

Argentine Meat. A clipping from a prominent Argentine stock journal reads: “Why is Argentine meat the best meat in the world? Because the soil of the vast area of the central part of the Republic is composed of earth and sand mixed with a high vegetable mould content with deep and permeable subsoils covered with alfalfa fields, the roots of which penetrate to a depth of 20 metres and bring to the surface the necessary mineral and organic elements for rapidly building up an animal of tender organism with a well balanced weight of bone, meat and fat.”

South Africa Buys Sheep. As a result of the tour of South Australia by members of the South African wool delegation, which attended a wool convention in Melbourne early in the year, the South African Government has arranged with the South Australian Government for the purchase of 92 selected flock rams of sheep of British breeds. The order includes 46 Dorset Horn rams, 10 Border Leicesters 16 Ryelands and 20 Romney Marsh, all to be of the 1936 drop. Members of the Society of Breeders of British sheep look upon the transaction as the forerunner of more extensive business.

Outlook for Flax Industry. “A new process in connection with the preparing of flax will shortly revolutionise this industry. During the past 12 months I have seen SO or more inventions in this connection, and I am confident that the one I refer to is going to save the flax industry,” declared Mr O. L. Hunter, M.P., for Manawatu, when addressing the annual meeting of the Foxton Chamber of Commerce. Mr Hunter said there were big prospects and when the impetus became operative he was confident 1000 people would be seen working in the flax industry in Foxton. He hoped to see large numbers of boys and men employed there in the near future. The flax textile factory at present employs chiefly female labour.