PRICE OF WHEAT.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20491, 9 March 1932, Page 4

PRICE OF WHEAT.

HOW IT IS ARRIVED AT. * _ A correspondent in yesterday's Press questioned the statement of Mr J. Connolly, M.P., in the House of Representatives, and of Mr W. W. Mulholland, of the Wheat Marketing Board, to the effect that the price of. 4s B£d per bushel, f.0.b.. for Tuscan wheat left farmers with 4s 4d on trucks. His own net result was 4s 2d a bushel. This writer's wheat apparently was from a distant station. The average rail is about 3£d a bushel—some less and some more, but the average is the basis on which costs of a necessity must be estimated. From the 4s Bid this 3id leaves 4s 5(1. A penny brokerage reduces it to 4s 4d. From this a penny a bushel is held _ to put into the Equalisation Fund in case it is necessary to export a wheat surplus, and the prospect of a, heavy surplus when the big acreage was sown was a strong probability. With the poor crop that has since developed export is the remotest of possibilities. The pennv was intended to subsidise the exported wheat to enable it to compete on the world's market. The Government has 'nothing to do with this . temporary charge—temporary in the j sense that the probabilities are that j most of it will be returned to the grower. The cost of running the marketing scheme is estimated to be less than a halfpenny a bushel, and an arrangement whereby millers will hand back to the Board any excess over £4 10s a ton for bran and pollard may further assist to replace the penny. The prices of offals permit this at the moment, but if the price drops below £4 10s the reserve will be called upon to return that amount. At present appearances are that an average of E4 10s will be more than maintained, but provision has to be made in case of a drop taking place. It is therefore certain that crowers at "average" stations—not "distant" ones—will receive 4s 3ld net. with a possibility of a proportion of the other halfpenny also materialising. MILK FEVER IN COWS. VITAMIN I) AS PREVENTIVE. Dr. J. Russell Grcig, M.R.C.V.S., director of the Animal Diseases Hesearch Association of Scotland, delivered a lecturo in the West of. Scotland Agriculture College to the Glasgow University Society of Agricultural .Science, the subject being milk fever in cows. The lecturer said that milk fever had perhaps given rise to more speculative hypothesis upon its cause and nature than any other disease in veterinary medicine. For first-aid treatment he advised that it the affected animal be in a double stall her neighbour should be removed, in order to give the patient more room. Care had to be taken that the cow did not injure herself should convulsive seizures develop, and during the later stage when sensibility was lost it was important to remove the binding chain and have the animal propped up in a more or less natural position by means of sacks filled with straw:. The administration of any medicine by the mouth should be avoided. It was strongly recommended that the further treatment or the case bo left to the veterinary practitioner. The remarkable curative effect of udder injection depended upon mechanical distension. Examination of blood from cases of milk iever showed that there was a marked fa" in the blood calcium. Further work by Dr. Dryerre and Dr. Greig had proved that milk fever was due to an acute calcium deficiency. A salt of calcium, the gluconate, which was capable of being injected subcutancoasly, had been obtained, and a calcium tlieraDy had been evolved, whicii was now adopted and extensively practised both in Scotland, on the Continent, and in America. Methods ot prevention of the disease were discussed, and there was evidence thaw massive doses of vitamin D administered before calving could raise the calcium and thus might tide the cow over the danger period.